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Chronicles of the Canongate
by Sir Walter Scott
July, 1999 [Etext #1828]
Project Gutenberg Etext of Chronicles of the Canongate, by Scott
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CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGATE.
by Sir Walter Scott, Bart.
CONTENTS.
Introduction to Chronicles of the Canongate.
Appendix to Introduction--The Theatrical Fund Dinner.
Introductory--Mr. Chrystal Croftangry.
The Highland Widow.
The Two Drovers.
Notes.
INTRODUCTION TO CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGATE.
The preceding volume of this Collection concluded the last of the
pieces originally published under the NOMINIS UMBRA of The Author
of Waverley; and the circumstances which rendered it impossible
for the writer to continue longer in the possession of his
incognito were communicated in 1827, in the Introduction to the
first series of Chronicles of the Canongate, consisting (besides
a biographical sketch of the imaginary chronicler) of three
tales, entitled "The Highland Widow," "The Two Drovers," and "The
Surgeon's Daughter." In the present volume the two first named
of these pieces are included, together with three detached
stories which appeared the year after, in the elegant compilation
called "The Keepsake." "The Surgeon's Daughter" it is thought
better to defer until a succeeding volume, than to
"Begin, and break off in the middle."
I have, perhaps, said enough on former occasions of the
misfortunes which led to the dropping of that mask under which I
had, for a long series of years, enjoyed so large a portion of
public favour. Through the success of those literary efforts, I
had been enabled to indulge most of the tastes which a retired
person of my station might be supposed to entertain. In the pen
of this nameless romancer, I seemed to possess something like the
secret fountain of coined gold and pearls vouchsafed to the
traveller of the Eastern Tale; and no doubt believed that I might
venture, without silly imprudence, to extend my personal
expenditure considerably beyond what I should have thought of,
had my means been limited to the competence which I derived from
inheritance, with the moderate income of a professional
situation. I bought, and built, and planted, and was considered
by myself, as by the rest of the world, in the safe possession of
an easy fortune. My riches, however, like the other riches of
this world, were liable to accidents, under which they were
ultimately destined to make unto themselves wings, and fly away.
The year 1825, so disastrous to many branches of industry and
commerce, did not spare the market of literature; and the sudden
ruin that fell on so many of the booksellers could scarcely have
been expected to leave unscathed one whose career had of
necessity connected him deeply and extensively with the pecuniary
transactions of that profession. In a word, almost without one
note of premonition, I found myself involved in the sweeping
catastrophe of the unhappy time, and called on to meet the
demands of creditors upon commercial establishments with which
my fortunes had long been bound up, to the extent of no less a
sum than one hundred and twenty thousand pounds.
The author having, however rashly, committed his pledges thus
largely to the hazards of trading companies, it behoved him, of
course, to abide the consequences of his conduct, and, with
whatever feelings, he surrendered on the instant every shred of
property which he had been accustomed to call his own. It became
vested in the hands of gentlemen whose integrity, prudence, and
intelligence were combined with all possible liberality and
kindness of disposition, and who readily afforded every
assistance towards the execution of plans, in the success of
which the author contemplated the possibility of his ultimate
extrication, and which were of such a nature that, had assistance
of this sort been withheld, he could have had little prospect of
carrying them into effect. Among other resources which occurred
was the project of that complete and corrected edition of his
Novels and Romances (whose real parentage had of necessity been
disclosed at the moment of the commercial convulsions alluded
to), which has now advanced with unprecedented favour nearly to
its close; but as he purposed also to continue, for the behoof of
those to whom he was indebted, the exercise of his pen in the
same path of literature, so long as the taste of his countrymen
should seem to approve of his efforts, it appeared to him that it
would have been an idle piece of affectation to attempt getting
up a new incognito, after his original visor had been thus dashed
from his brow. Hence the personal narrative prefixed to the
first work of fiction which he put forth after the paternity of
the "Waverley Novels" had come to be publicly ascertained; and
though many of the particulars originally avowed in that Notice
have been unavoidably adverted to in the Prefaces and Notes to
some of the preceding volumes of the present collection, it is
now reprinted as it stood at the time, because some interest is
generally attached to a coin or medal struck on a special
occasion, as expressing, perhaps, more faithfully than the same
artist could have afterwards conveyed, the feelings of the moment
that gave it birth. The Introduction to the first series of
Chronicles of the Canongate ran, then, in these words:--
INTRODUCTION.
All who are acquainted with the early history of the Italian
stage are aware that Arlecchino is not, in his original
conception, a mere worker of marvels with his wooden sword, a
jumper in and out of windows, as upon our theatre, but, as his
party-coloured jacket implies, a buffoon or clown, whose mouth,
far from being eternally closed, as amongst us, is filled, like
that of Touchstone, with quips, and cranks, and witty devices,
very often delivered extempore. It is not easy to trace how he
became possessed of his black vizard, which was anciently made in
the resemblance of the face of a cat; but it seems that the mask
was essential to the performance of the character, as will appear
from the following theatrical anecdote:--
An actor on the Italian stage permitted at the Foire du St.
Germain, in Paris, was renowned for the wild, venturous, and
extravagant wit, the brilliant sallies and fortunate repartees,
with which he prodigally seasoned the character of the party-
coloured jester. Some critics, whose good-will towards a
favourite performer was stronger than their judgment, took
occasion to remonstrate with the successful actor on the subject
of the grotesque vizard. They went wilily to their purpose,
observing that his classical and Attic wit, his delicate vein of
humour, his happy turn for dialogue, were rendered burlesque and
ludicrous by this unmeaning and bizarre disguise, and that those
attributes would become far more impressive if aided by the
spirit of his eye and the expression of his natural features.
The actor's vanity was easily so far engaged as to induce him to
make the experiment. He played Harlequin barefaced, but was
considered on all hands as having made a total failure. He had
lost the audacity which a sense of incognito bestowed, and with
it all the reckless play of raillery which gave vivacity to his
original acting. He cursed his advisers, and resumed his
grotesque vizard, but, it is said, without ever being able to
regain the careless and successful levity which the consciousness
of the disguise had formerly bestowed.
Perhaps the Author of Waverley is now about to incur a risk of
the same kind, and endanger his popularity by having laid aside
his incognito. It is certainly not a voluntary experiment, like
that of Harlequin; for it was my original intention never to have
avowed these works during my lifetime, and the original
manuscripts were carefully preserved (though by the care of
others rather than mine), with the purpose of supplying the
necessary evidence of the truth when the period of announcing it
should arrive. [These manuscripts are at present (August 1831)
advertised for public sale, which is an addition, though a small
one, to other annoyances.] But the affairs of my publishers
having, unfortunately, passed into a management different from
their own, I had no right any longer to rely upon secrecy in that
quarter; and thus my mask, like my Aunt Dinah's in "Tristram
Shandy," having begun to wax a little threadbare about the chin,
it became time to lay it aside with a good grace, unless I
desired it should fall in pieces from my face, which was now
become likely.
Yet I had not the slightest intention of selecting the time and
place in which the disclosure was finally made; nor was there any
concert betwixt my learned and respected friend LORD MEADOWBANK
and myself upon that occasion. It was, as the reader is probably
aware, upon the 23rd February last, at a public meeting, called
for establishing a professional Theatrical Fund in Edinburgh,
that the communication took place. Just before we sat down to
table, Lord Meadowbank [One of the Supreme Judges of Scotland,
termed Lords of Council and Session.] asked me privately whether
I was still anxious to preserve my incognito on the subject of
what were called the Waverley Novels? I did not immediately see
the purpose of his lordship's question, although I certainly
might have been led to infer it, and replied that the secret had
now of necessity become known to so many people that I was
indifferent on the subject. Lord Meadowbank was thus induced,
while doing me the great honour of proposing my health to the
meeting, to say something on the subject of these Novels so
strongly connecting them with me as the author, that by remaining
silent I must have stood convicted, either of the actual
paternity, or of the still greater crime of being supposed
willing to receive indirectly praise to which I had no just
title. I thus found myself suddenly and unexpectedly placed in
the confessional, and had only time to recollect that I had been
guided thither by a most friendly hand, and could not, perhaps,
find a better public opportunity to lay down a disguise which
began to resemble that of a detected masquerader.
I had therefore the task of avowing myself, to the numerous and
respectable company assembled, as the sole and unaided author of
these Novels of Waverley, the paternity of which was likely at
one time to have formed a controversy of some celebrity, for the
ingenuity with which some instructors of the public gave their
assurance on the subject was extremely persevering. I now think
it further necessary to say that, while I take on myself all the
merits and demerits attending these compositions, I am bound to
acknowledge with gratitude hints of subjects and legends which I
have received from various quarters, and have occasionally used
as a foundation of my fictitious compositions, or woven up with
them in the shape of episodes. I am bound, in particular, to
acknowledge the unremitting kindness of Mr. Joseph Train,
supervisor of excise at Dumfries, to whose unwearied industry I
have been indebted for many curious traditions and points of
antiquarian interest. It was Mr. Train who brought to my
recollection the history of Old Mortality, although I myself had
had a personal interview with that celebrated wanderer so far
back as about 1792, when I found him on his usual task. He was
then engaged in repairing the Gravestones of the Covenanters who
had died while imprisoned in the Castle of Dunnottar, to which
many of them were committed prisoners at the period of Argyle's
rising. Their place of confinement is still called the Whigs'
Vault. Mr. Train, however, procured for me far more extensive
information concerning this singular person, whose name was
Patterson, than I had been able to acquire during my own short
conversation with him. [See, for some further particulars, the
notes to Old Mortality, in the present collective edition.] He
was (as I think I have somewhere already stated) a native of the
parish of Closeburn, in Dumfriesshire; and it is believed that
domestic affliction, as well as devotional feeling, induced him
to commence the wandering mode of life which he pursued for a
very long period. It is more than twenty years since Robert
Patterson's death, which took place on the highroad near
Lockerby, where he was found exhausted and expiring. The white
pony, the companion of his pilgrimage, was standing by the side
of its dying master the whole furnishing a scene not unfitted for
the pencil. These particulars I had from Mr. Train.
Another debt, which I pay most willingly, I owe to an unknown
correspondent (a lady), [The late Mrs. Goldie.] who favoured me
with the history of the upright and high-principled female, whom,
in the Heart of Mid-Lothian, I have termed Jeanie Deans. The
circumstance of her refusing to save her sister's life by an act
of perjury, and undertaking a pilgrimage to London to obtain her
pardon, are both represented as true by my fair and obliging
correspondent; and they led me to consider the possibility of
rendering a fictitious personage interesting by mere dignity of
mind and rectitude of principle, assisted by unpretending good
sense and temper, without any of the beauty, grace, talent,
accomplishment, and wit to which a heroine of romance is supposed
to have a prescriptive right. If the portrait was received with
interest by the public, I am conscious how much it was owing to
the truth and force of the original sketch, which I regret that I
am unable to present to the public, as it was written with much
feeling and spirit.
Old and odd books, and a considerable collection of family
legends, formed another quarry, so ample that it was much more
likely that the strength of the labourer should be exhausted than
that materials should fail. I may mention, for example's sake,
that the terrible catastrophe of the Bride of Lammermoor actually
occurred in a Scottish family of rank. The female relative, by
whom the melancholy tale was communicated to me many years since,
was a near connection of the family in which the event happened,
and always told it with an appearance of melancholy mystery which
enhanced the interest. She had known in her youth the brother
who rode before the unhappy victim to the fatal altar, who,
though then a mere boy, and occupied almost entirely with the
gaiety of his own appearance in the bridal procession, could not
but remark that the hand of his sister was moist, and cold as
that of a statue. It is unnecessary further to withdraw the veil
from this scene of family distress, nor, although it occurred
more than a hundred years since, might it be altogether agreeable
to the representatives of the families concerned in the
narrative. It may be proper to say that the events alone are
imitated; but I had neither the means nor intention of copying
the manners, or tracing the characters, of the persons concerned
in the real story. Indeed, I may here state generally that,
although I have deemed historical personages free subjects of
delineation, I have never on any occasion violated the respect
due to private life. It was indeed impossible that traits proper
to persons, both living and dead, with whom I have had
intercourse in society, should not have risen to my pen in such
works as Waverley, and those which followed it. But I have
always studied to generalize the portraits, so that they should
still seem, on the whole, the productions of fancy, though
possessing some resemblance to real individuals. Yet I must own
my attempts have not in this last particular been uniformly
successful. There are men whose characters are so peculiarly
marked, that the delineation of some leading and principal
feature inevitably places the whole person before you in his
individuality. Thus, the character of Jonathan Oldbuck, in the
Antiquary, was partly founded on that of an old friend of my
youth, to whom I am indebted for introducing me to Shakespeare,
and other invaluable favours; but I thought I had so completely
disguised the likeness that his features could not be recognized
by any one now alive. I was mistaken, however, and indeed had
endangered what I desired should be considered as a secret; for I
afterwards learned that a highly-respectable gentleman, one of
the few surviving friends of my father, and an acute critic,
[James Chalmers, Esq., Solicitor at Law, London, who (died during
the publication of the present edition of these Novels. (Aug.
1831.)] had said, upon the appearance of the work, that he was
now convinced who was the author of it, as he recognized in the
Antiquary of Monkbarns traces of the character of a very intimate
friend of my father's family.
I may here also notice that the sort of exchange of gallantry
which is represented as taking place betwixt the Baron of
Bradwardine and Colonel Talbot, is a literal fact. The real
circumstances of the anecdote, alike honourable to Whig and Tory,
are these:--
Alexander Stewart of Invernahyle--a name which I cannot write
without the warmest recollections of gratitude to the friend of
my childhood, who first introduced me to the Highlands, their
traditions, and their manners--had been engaged actively in the
troubles of 1745. As he charged at the battle of Preston with
his clan, the Stewarts of Appin, he saw an officer of the
opposite army standing alone by a battery of four cannon, of
which he discharged three on the advancing Highlanders, and then
drew his sword. Invernahyle rushed on him, and required him to
surrender. "Never to rebels!" was the undaunted reply,
accompanied with a lunge, which the Highlander received on his
target, but instead of using his sword in cutting down his now
defenceless antagonist, he employed it in parrying the blow of a
Lochaber axe aimed at the officer by the Miller, one of his own
followers, a grim-looking old Highlander, whom I remember to have
seen. Thus overpowered, Lieutenant-Colonel Allan Whitefoord, a
gentleman of rank and consequence, as well as a brave officer,
gave up his sword, and with it his purse and watch, which
Invernahyle accepted, to save them from his followers. After the
affair was over, Mr. Stewart sought out his prisoner, and they
were introduced to each other by the celebrated John Roy Stewart,
who acquainted Colonel Whitefoord with the quality of his captor,
and made him aware of the necessity of receiving back his
property, which he was inclined to leave in the hands into which
it had fallen. So great became the confidence established
betwixt them, that Invernahyle obtained from the Chevalier his
prisoner's freedom upon parole; and soon afterwards, having been
sent back to the Highlands to raise men, he visited Colonel
Whitefoord at his own house, and spent two happy days with him
and his Whig friends, without thinking on either side of the
civil war which was then raging.
When the battle of Culloden put an end to the hopes of Charles
Edward, Invernahyle, wounded and unable to move, was borne from
the field by the faithful zeal of his retainers. But as he had
been a distinguished Jacobite, his family and property were
exposed to the system of vindictive destruction too generally
carried into execution through the country of the insurgents. It
was now Colonel Whitefoord's turn to exert himself, and he
wearied all the authorities, civil and military, with his
solicitations for pardon to the saver of his life, or at least
for a protection for his wife and family. His applications were
for a long time unsuccessful. "I was found with the mark of the
Beast upon me in every list," was Invernahyle's expression. At
length Colonel Whitefoord applied to the Duke of Cumberland, and
urged his suit with every argument which he could think of, being
still repulsed, he took his commission from his bosom, and having
said something of his own and his family's exertions in the cause
of the House of Hanover, begged to resign his situation in their
service, since he could not be permitted to show his gratitude to
the person to whom he owed his life. The duke, struck with his
earnestness, desired him to take up his commission, and granted
the protection required for the family of Invernahyle.
The chieftain himself lay concealed in a cave near his own house,
before which a small body of regular soldiers were encamped. He
could hear their muster-roll called every morning, and their
drums beat to quarters at night, and not a change of the
sentinels escaped him. As it was suspected that he was lurking
somewhere on the property, his family were closely watched, and
compelled to use the utmost precaution in supplying him with
food. One of his daughters, a child of eight or ten years old,
was employed as the agent least likely to be suspected. She was
an instance, among others, that a time of danger and difficulty
creates a premature sharpness of intellect. She made herself
acquainted among the soldiers, till she became so familiar to
them that her motions escaped their notice; and her practice was
to stroll away into the neighbourhood of the cave, and leave what
slender supply of food she carried for that purpose under some
remarkable stone, or the root of some tree, where her father
might find it as he crept by night from his lurking-place. Times
became milder, and my excellent friend was relieved from
proscription by the Act of Indemnity. Such is the interesting
story which I have rather injured than improved by the manner in
which it is told in Waverley.
This incident, with several other circumstances illustrating the
Tales in question, was communicated by me to my late lamented
friend, William Erskine (a Scottish judge, by the title of Lord
Kinedder), who afterwards reviewed with far too much partiality
the Tales of my Landlord, for the Quarterly Review of January
1817. [Lord Kinedder died in August 1822. EHEU! (Aug. 1831.)]
In the same article are contained other illustrations of the
Novels, with which I supplied my accomplished friend, who took
the trouble to write the review. The reader who is desirous of
such information will find the original of Meg Merrilies, and, I
believe, of one or two other personages of the same cast of
character, in the article referred to.
I may also mention that the tragic and savage circumstances which
are represented as preceding the birth of Allan MacAulay in the
Legend of Montrose, really happened in the family of Stewart of
Ardvoirlich. The wager about the candlesticks, whose place was
supplied by Highland torch-bearers, was laid and won by one of
the MacDonalds of Keppoch.
There can be but little amusement in winnowing out the few grains
of truth which are contained in this mass of empty fiction. I
may, however, before dismissing the subject, allude to the
various localities which have been affixed to some of the scenery
introduced into these Novels, by which, for example, Wolf's Hope
is identified with Fast Castle in Berwickshire, Tillietudlem with
Draphane in Clydesdale, and the valley in the Monastery, called
Glendearg, with the dale of the river Allan, above Lord
Somerville's villa, near Melrose. I can only say that, in these
and other instances, I had no purpose of describing any
particular local spot; and the resemblance must therefore be of
that general kind which necessarily exists between scenes of the
same character. The iron-bound coast of Scotland affords upon
its headlands and promontories fifty such castles as Wolf's Hope;
every county has a valley more or less resembling Glendearg; and
if castles like Tillietudlem, or mansions like the Baron of
Bradwardine's, are now less frequently to be met with, it is
owing to the rage of indiscriminate destruction, which has
removed or ruined so many monuments of antiquity, when they were
not protected by their inaccessible situation. [I would
particularly intimate the Kaim of Uric, on the eastern coast of
Scotland, as having suggested an idea for the tower called Wolf's
Crag, which the public more generally identified with the ancient
tower of Fast Castle.]
The scraps of poetry which have been in most cases tacked to the
beginning of chapters in these Novels are sometimes quoted either
from reading or from memory, but, in the general case, are pure
invention. I found it too troublesome to turn to the collection
of the British Poets to discover apposite mottoes, and, in the
situation of the theatrical mechanist, who, when the white paper
which represented his shower of snow was exhausted, continued the
storm by snowing brown, I drew on my memory as long as I could,
and when that failed, eked it out with invention. I believe that
in some cases, where actual names are affixed to the supposed
quotations, it would be to little purpose to seek them in the
works of the authors referred to. In some cases I have been
entertained when Dr. Watts and other graver authors have been
ransacked in vain for stanzas for which the novelist alone was
responsible.
And now the reader may expect me, while in the confessional, to
explain the motives why I have so long persisted in disclaiming
the works of which I am now writing. To this it would be
difficult to give any other reply, save that of Corporal Nym--it
was the author's humour or caprice for the time. I hope it will
not be construed into ingratitude to the public, to whose
indulgence I have owed my SANG-FROID much more than to any merit
of my own, if I confess that I am, and have been, more
indifferent to success or to failure as an author, than may be
the case with others, who feel more strongly the passion for
literary fame, probably because they are justly conscious of a
better title to it. It was not until I had attained the age of
thirty years that I made any serious attempt at distinguishing
myself as an author; and at that period men's hopes, desires, and
wishes have usually acquired something of a decisive character,
and are not eagerly and easily diverted into a new channel. When
I made the discovery--for to me it was one--that by amusing
myself with composition, which I felt a delightful occupation, I
could also give pleasure to others, and became aware that
literary pursuits were likely to engage in future a considerable
portion of my time, I felt some alarm that I might acquire those
habits of jealousy and fretfulness which have lessened, and even
degraded, the character even of great authors, and rendered them,
by their petty squabbles and mutual irritability, the laughing-
stock of the people of the world. I resolved, therefore, in this
respect to guard my breast--perhaps an unfriendly critic may add,
my brow--with triple brass, [Not altogether impossible, when it
is considered that I have been at the bar since 1792. (Aug.
1831.)] and as much as possible to avoid resting my thoughts and
wishes upon literary success, lest I should endanger my own peace
of mind and tranquillity by literary failure. It would argue
either stupid apathy or ridiculous affectation to say that I have
been insensible to the public applause, when I have been honoured
with its testimonies; and still more highly do I prize the
invaluable friendships which some temporary popularity has
enabled me to form among those of my contemporaries most
distinguished by talents and genius, and which I venture to hope
now rest upon a basis more firm than the circumstances which gave
rise to them. Yet, feeling all these advantages as a man ought
to do, and must do, I may say, with truth and confidence, that I
have, I think, tasted of the intoxicating cup with moderation,
and that I have never, either in conversation or correspondence,
encouraged discussions respecting my own literary pursuits. On
the contrary, I have usually found such topics, even when
introduced from motives most flattering to myself, Rather
embarrassing and disagreeable.
I have now frankly told my motives for concealment, so far as I
am conscious of having any, and the public will forgive the
egotism of the detail, as what is necessarily connected with it.
The author, so long and loudly called for, has appeared on the
stage, and made his obeisance to the audience. Thus far his
conduct is a mark of respect. To linger in their presence would
be intrusion.
I have only to repeat that I avow myself in print, as formerly in
words, the sole and unassisted author of all the Novels published
as works of "The Author of Waverley." I do this without shame,
for I am unconscious that there is any thing in their composition
which deserves reproach, either on the score of religion or
morality; and without any feeling of exultation, because,
whatever may have been their temporary success, I am well aware
how much their reputation depends upon the caprice of fashion;
and I have already mentioned the precarious tenure by which it is
held, as a reason for displaying no great avidity in grasping at
the possession.
I ought to mention, before concluding, that twenty persons, at
least, were, either from intimacy, or from the confidence which
circumstances rendered necessary, participant of this secret; and
as there was no instance, to my knowledge, of any one of the
number breaking faith, I am the more obliged to them, because the
slight and trivial character of the mystery was not qualified to
inspire much respect in those entrusted with it. Nevertheless,
like Jack the Giant-Killer, I was fully confident in the
advantage of my "Coat of Darkness;" and had it not been from
compulsory circumstances, I would have, indeed, been very
cautious how I parted with it.
As for the work which follows, it was meditated, and in part
printed, long before the avowal of the novels took place, and
originally commenced with a declaration that it was neither to
have introduction nor preface of any kind. This long proem,
prefixed to a work intended not to have any, may, however, serve
to show how human purposes in the most trifling, as well as the
most important affairs, are liable to be controlled by the course
of events. Thus we begin to cross a strong river with our eyes
and our resolution fixed on that point of the opposite shore on
which we purpose to land; but gradually giving way to the
torrent, are glad, by the aid perhaps of branch or bush, to
extricate ourselves at some distant and perhaps dangerous
landing-place, much farther down the stream than that on which we
had fixed our intentions.
Hoping that the Courteous Reader will afford to a known and
familiar acquaintance some portion of the favour which he
extended to a disguised candidate for his applause, I beg leave
to subscribe myself his obliged humble servant,
WALTER SCOTT.
ABBOTSFORD, OCTOBER 1, 1827.
*
Such was the little narrative which I thought proper to put forth
in October 1827; nor have I much to add to it now. About to
appear for the first time in my own name in this department of
letters, it occurred to me that something in the shape of a
periodical publication might carry with it a certain air of
novelty, and I was willing to break, if I may so express it, the
abruptness of my personal forthcoming, by investing an imaginary
coadjutor with at least as much distinctness of individual
existence as I had ever previously thought it worth while to
bestow on shadows of the same convenient tribe. Of course, it
had never been in my contemplation to invite the assistance of
any real person in the sustaining of my quasi-editorial character
and labours. It had long been my opinion, that any thing like a
literary PICNIC is likely to end in suggesting comparisons,
justly termed odious, and therefore to be avoided; and, indeed, I
had also had some occasion to know, that promises of assistance,
in efforts of that order, are apt to be more magnificent than the
subsequent performance. I therefore planned a Miscellany, to be
dependent, after the old fashion, on my own resources alone, and
although conscious enough that the moment which assigned to the
Author of Waverley "a local habitation and a name," had seriously
endangered his spell, I felt inclined to adopt the sentiment of
my old hero Montrose, and to say to myself, that in literature,
as in war,--
"He either fears his fate too much,
Or his deserts are small,
Who dares not put it to the touch,
To win or lose it all."
To the particulars explanatory of the plan of these Chronicles,
which the reader is presented with in Chapter II. by the
imaginary Editor, Mr. Croftangry, I have now to add, that the
lady, termed in his narrative, Mrs. Bethune Balliol, was designed
to shadow out in its leading points the interesting character of
a dear friend of mine, Mrs. Murray Keith, whose death occurring
shortly before, had saddened a wide circle, much attached to her,
as well for her genuine virtue and amiable qualities of
disposition, as for the extent of information which she
possessed, and the delightful manner in which she was used to
communicate it. In truth, the author had, on many occasions,
been indebted to her vivid memory for the SUBSTRATUM of his
Scottish fictions, and she accordingly had been, from an early
period, at no loss to fix the Waverley Novels on the right
culprit.
[The Keiths of Craig, in Kincardineshire, descended from John
Keith, fourth son of William, second Earl Marischal, who got from
his father, about 1480, the lands of Craig, and part of Garvock,
in that county. In Douglas's Baronage, 443 to 445, is a pedigree
of that family. Colonel Robert Keith of Craig (the seventh in
descent from John) by his wife, Agnes, daughter of Robert Murray
of Murrayshall, of the family of Blackbarony, widow of Colonel
Stirling, of the family of Keir, had one son--namely Robert Keith
of Craig, ambassador to the court of Vienna, afterwards to St.
Petersburgh, which latter situation he held at the accession of
King George III.--who died at Edinburgh in 1774. He married
Margaret, second daughter of Sir William Cunningham of
Caprington, by Janet, only child and heiress of Sir James Dick of
Prestonfield; and, among other children of this marriage were the
late well-known diplomatist, Sir Robert Murray Keith, K.B., a
general in the army, and for some time ambassador at Vienna; Sir
Basil Keith, Knight, captain in the navy, who died Governor of
Jamaica; and my excellent friend, Anne Murray Keith, who
ultimately came into possession of the family estates, and died
not long before the date of this Introduction (1831).]
In the sketch of Chrystal Croftangry's own history, the author
has been accused of introducing some not polite allusions to
respectable living individuals; but he may safely, he presumes,
pass over such an insinuation. The first of the narratives which
Mr. Croftangry proceeds to lay before the public, "The Highland
Widow," was derived from Mrs. Murray Keith, and is given, with
the exception of a few additional circumstances--the introduction
of which I am rather inclined to regret--very much as the
excellent old lady used to tell the story. Neither the Highland
cicerone Macturk nor the demure washingwoman, were drawn from
imagination; and on re-reading my tale, after the lapse of a few
years, and comparing its effect with my remembrance of my worthy
friend's oral narration, which was certainly extremely affecting,
I cannot but suspect myself of having marred its simplicity by
some of those interpolations, which, at the time when I penned
them, no doubt passed with myself for embellishments.
The next tale, entitled "The Two Drovers," I learned from another
old friend, the late George Constable, Esq. of Wallace-Craigie,
near Dundee, whom I have already introduced to my reader as the
original Antiquary of Monkbarns. He had been present, I think,
at the trial at Carlisle, and seldom mentioned the venerable
judges charge to the jury, without shedding tears,--which had
peculiar pathos, as flowing down features, carrying rather a
sarcastic or almost a cynical expression.
This worthy gentleman's reputation for shrewd Scottish sense,
knowledge of our national antiquities, and a racy humour peculiar
to himself, must be still remembered. For myself, I have pride
in recording that for many years we were, in Wordsworth's
language,--
"A pair of friends, though I was young,
And 'George' was seventy-two."
W. S.
ABBOTSFORD, AUG. 15, 1831.
*
APPENDIX TO INTRODUCTION.
[It has been suggested to the Author that it might be well to
reprint here a detailed account of the public dinner alluded to
in the foregoing Introduction, as given in the newspapers of the
time; and the reader is accordingly presented with the following
extract from the EDINBURGH WEEKLY JOURNAL for Wednesday, 28th
February, 1827.]
THE THEATRICAL FUND DINNER.
Before proceeding with our account of this very interesting
festival--for so it may be termed--it is our duty to present to
our readers the following letter, which we have received from the
President:--
TO THE EDITOR OF THE "EDINBURGH WEEKLY JOURNAL."
Sir,--I am extremely sorry I have not leisure to correct the copy
you sent me of what I am stated to have said at the dinner for
the Theatrical Fund. I am no orator, and upon such occasions as
are alluded to, I say as well as I can what the time requires.
However, I hope your reporter has been more accurate in other
instances than in mine. I have corrected one passage, in which I
am made to speak with great impropriety and petulance, respecting
the opinions of those who do not approve of dramatic
entertainments. I have restored what I said, which was meant to
be respectful, as every objection founded in conscience is, in my
opinion, entitled to be so treated. Other errors I left as I
found them, it being of little consequence whether I spoke sense
or nonsense in what was merely intended for the purpose of the
hour.
I am, sir,
Your obedient servant,
EDINBURGH, MONDAY. WALTER SCOTT.
*
The Theatrical Fund Dinner, which took place on Friday, in the
Assembly Rooms, was conducted with admirable spirit. The
Chairman, Sir WALTER SCOTT, among his other great qualifications,
is well fitted to enliven such an entertainment. His manners are
extremely easy, and his style of speaking simple and natural, yet
full of vivacity and point; and he has the art, if it be art, of
relaxing into a certain homeliness of manner, without losing one
particle of his dignity. He thus takes off some of that solemn
formality which belongs to such meetings, and, by his easy, and
graceful familiarity, imparts to them somewhat of the pleasing
character of a private entertainment. Near Sir W. Scott sat the
Earl of Fife, Lord Meadowbank, Sir John Hope of Pinkie, Bart.,
Admiral Adam, Baron Clerk Rattray, Gilbert Innes, Esq., James
Walker, Esq., Robert Dundas, Esq., Alexander Smith, Esq., etc.
The cloth being removed, "Non nobis, Domine," was sung by Messrs.
Thorne, Swift, Collier, and Hartley, after which the following
toasts were given from the chair:--
"The King"--all the honours.
"The Duke of Clarence and the Royal Family."
The CHAIRMAN, in proposing the next toast, which he wished to be
drunk in solemn silence, said it was to the memory of a
regretted-prince, whom we had lately lost. Every individual
would at once conjecture to whom he alluded. He had no intention
to dwell on his military merits. They had been told in the
senate; they had been repeated in the cottage; and whenever a
soldier was the theme, his name was never far distant. But it
was chiefly in connection with the business of this meeting,
which his late Royal Highness had condescended in a particular
manner to patronize, that they were called on to drink his
health. To that charity he had often sacrificed his time, and
had given up the little leisure which he had from important
business. He was always ready to attend on every occasion of
this kind, and it was in that view that he proposed to drink to
the memory of his late Royal Highness the Duke of York.--Drunk in
solemn silence.
The CHAIRMAN then requested that gentlemen would fill a bumper as
full as it would hold, while he would say only a few words. He
was in the habit of hearing speeches, and he knew the feeling
with which long ones were regarded. He was sure that it was
perfectly unnecessary for him to enter into any vindication of
the dramatic art, which they had come here to support. This,
however, he considered to be the proper time and proper occasion
for him to say a few words on that love of representation which
was an innate feeling in human nature. It was the first
amusement that the child had. It grew greater as he grew up; and
even in the decline of life nothing amuses so much as when a
common tale is told with appropriate personification. The first
thing a child does is to ape his schoolmaster by flogging a
chair. The assuming a character ourselves, or the seeing others
assume an imaginary character, is an enjoyment natural to
humanity. It was implanted in our very nature to take pleasure
from such representations, at proper times and on proper
occasions. In all ages the theatrical art had kept pace with the
improvement of mankind, and with the progress of letters and the
fine arts. As man has advanced from the ruder stages of society,
the love of dramatic representations has increased, and all works
of this nature have keen improved in character and in structure.
They had only to turn their eyes to the history of ancient
Greece, although he did not pretend to be very deeply versed in
its ancient drama. Its first tragic poet commanded a body of
troops at the battle of Marathon. Sophocles and Euripides were
men of rank in Athens when Athens was in its highest renown.
They shook Athens with their discourses, as their theatrical
works shook the theatre itself. If they turned to France in the
time of Louis the Fourteenth--that era which is the classical
history of that country--they would find that it was referred to
by all Frenchmen as the golden age of the drama there. And also
in England in the time of Queen Elizabeth the drama was at its
highest pitch, when the nation began to mingle deeply and wisely
in the general politics of Europe, not only not receiving laws
from others, but giving laws to the world, and vindicating the
rights of mankind. (Cheers.) There have been various times when
the dramatic art subsequently fell into disrepute. Its
professors have been stigmatized, and laws have been passed
against them, less dishonourable to them than to the statesmen by
whom they were proposed, and to the legislators by whom they were
adopted. What were the times in which these laws were passed?
Was it not when virtue was seldom inculcated as a moral duty that
we were required to relinquish the most rational of all our
amusements, when the clergy were enjoined celibacy, and when the
laity were denied the right to read their Bibles? He thought
that it must have been from a notion of penance that they erected
the drama into an ideal place of profaneness, and spoke of the
theatre as of the tents of sin. He did not mean to dispute that
there were many excellent persons who thought differently from
him, and he disclaimed the slightest idea of charging them with
bigotry or hypocrisy on that account. He gave them full credit
for their tender consciences, in making these objections,
although they did not appear relevant to him. But to these
persons, being, as he believed them, men of worth and piety, he
was sure the purpose of this meeting would furnish some apology
for an error, if there be any, in the opinions of those who
attend. They would approve the gift, although they might differ
in other points. Such might not approve of going to the theatre,
but at least could not deny that they might give away from their
superfluity what was required for the relief of the sick, the
support of the aged, and the comfort of the afflicted. These
were duties enjoined by our religion itself. (Loud cheers.)
The performers are in a particular manner entitled to the support
or regard, when in old age or distress, of those who have
partaken of the amusements of those places which they render an
ornament to society. Their art was of a peculiarly delicate and
precarious nature. They had to serve a long apprenticeship. It
was very long before even the first-rate geniuses could acquire
the mechanical knowledge of the stage business. They must
languish long in obscurity before they can avail themselves of
their natural talents; and after that they have but a short space
of time, during which they are fortunate if they can provide the
means of comfort in the decline of life. That comes late, and
lasts but a short time; after which they are left dependent.
Their limbs fail--their teeth are loosened--their voice is lost
and they are left, after giving happiness to others, in a most
disconsolate state. The public were liberal and generous to
those deserving their protection. It was a sad thing to be
dependent on the favour, or, he might say, in plain terms, on the
caprice, of the public; and this more particularly for a class of
persons of whom extreme prudence is not the character. There
might be instances of opportunities being neglected. But let
each gentleman tax himself, and consider the opportunities THEY
had neglected, and the sums of money THEY had wasted; let every
gentleman look into his own bosom, and say whether these were
circumstances which would soften his own feelings, were he to be
plunged into distress. He put it to every generous bosom--to
every better feeling--to say what consolation was it to old age
to be told that you might have made provision at a time which had
been neglected--(loud cheers)--and to find it objected, that if
you had pleased you might have been wealthy. He had hitherto
been speaking of what, in theatrical language, was called STARS;
but they were sometimes falling ones. There was another class of
sufferers naturally and necessarily connected with the theatre,
without whom it was impossible to go on. The sailors have a
saying, Every man cannot be a boatswain. If there must be a
great actor to act Hamlet, there must also be people to act
Laertes, the King, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern, otherwise a
drama cannot go on. If even Garrick himself were to rise from
the dead, he could not act Hamlet alone. There must be generals,
colonels, commanding-officers, subalterns. But what are the
private soldiers to do? Many have mistaken their own talents,
and have been driven in early youth to try the stage, to which
they are not competent. He would know what to say to the
indifferent poet and to the bad artist. He would say that it was
foolish, and he would recommend to the poet to become a scribe,
and the artist to paint sign-posts. (Loud laughter.) But you
could not send the player adrift; for if he cannot play Hamlet,
he must play Guildenstern. Where there are many labourers, wages
must be low and no man in such a situation can decently support a
wife and family, and save something off his income for old age.
What is this man to do in later life? Are you to cast him off
like an old hinge, or a piece of useless machinery, which has
done its work? To a person who had contributed to our amusement,
this would be unkind, ungrateful, and unchristian. His wants are
not of his own making, but arise from the natural sources of
sickness and old age. It cannot be denied that there is one
class of sufferers to whom no imprudence can be ascribed, except
on first entering on the profession. After putting his hand to
the dramatic plough, he cannot draw back, but must continue at
it, and toil, till death release him from want, or charity, by
its milder influence, steps in to render that want more
tolerable. He had little more to say, except that he sincerely
hoped that the collection to-day, from the number of respectable
gentlemen present, would meet the views entertained by the
patrons. He hoped it would do so. They should not be
disheartened. Though they could not do a great deal, they might
do something. They had this consolation, that everything they
parted with from their superfluity would do some good. They
would sleep the better themselves when they had been the means of
giving sleep to others. It was ungrateful and unkind that those
who had sacrificed their youth to our amusement should not
receive the reward due to them, but should be reduced to hard
fare in their old age. We cannot think of poor Falstaff going to
bed without his cup of sack, or Macbeth fed on bones as
marrowless as those of Banquo. (Loud cheers and laughter.) As he
believed that they were all as fond of the dramatic art as he was
in his younger days, he would propose that they should drink "The
Theatrical Fund," with three times three.
Mr. MACKAY rose, on behalf of his brethren, to return their
thanks for the toast just drunk. Many of the gentlemen present,
he said, were perhaps not fully acquainted with the nature and
intention of the institution, and it might not be amiss to enter
into some explanation on the subject. With whomsoever the idea
of a Theatrical Fund might have originated (and it had been
disputed by the surviving relatives of two or three individuals),
certain it was that the first legally constituted Theatrical Fund
owed its origin to one of the brightest ornaments of the
profession, the late David Garrick. That eminent actor conceived
that, by a weekly subscription in the theatre, a fund might be
raised among its members, from which a portion might be given to
those of his less fortunate brethren, and thus an opportunity
would be offered for prudence to provide what fortune had denied
--a comfortable provision for the winter of life. With the
welfare of his profession constantly at heart, the zeal with
which he laboured to uphold its respectability, and to impress
upon the minds or his brethren, not only the necessity, but the
blessing of independence, the Fund became his peculiar care. He
drew up a form of laws for its government, procured at his own
expense the passing of an Act of Parliament for its confirmation,
bequeathed to it a handsome legacy, and thus became the father of
the Drury Lane Fund. So constant was his attachment to this
infant establishment, that he chose to grace the close of the
brightest theatrical life on record by the last display of his
transcendent talent on the occasion of a benefit for this child
of his adoption, which ever since has gone by the name of the
Garrick Fund. In imitation of his noble example, funds had been
established in several provincial theatres in England; but it
remained for Mrs. Henry Siddons and Mr. William Murray to become
the founders of the first Theatrical Fund in Scotland. (Cheers.)
This Fund commenced under the most favourable auspices. It was
liberally supported by the management, and highly patronized by
the public. Notwithstanding, it fell short in the accomplishment
of its intentions. What those intentions were, he (Mr. Mackay)
need not recapitulate, but they failed; and he did not hesitate
to confess that a want of energy on the part of the performers
was the probable cause. A new set of Rules and Regulations were
lately drawn up, submitted to and approved of at a general
meeting of the members of the Theatre, and accordingly the Fund
was remodelled on the 1st of January last. And here he thought
he did but echo the feelings of his brethren, by publicly
acknowledging the obligations they were under to the management
for the aid given and the warm interest they had all along taken
in the welfare of the Fund. (Cheers.) The nature and object of
the profession had been so well treated of by the President that
he would say nothing; but of the numerous offspring of science
and genius that court precarious fame, the actor boasts the
slenderest claim of all--the sport of fortune, the creatures of
fashion, and the victims of caprice, they are seen, heard, and
admired, but to be forgot. They leave no trace, no memorial of
their existence--they "come like shadows, so depart." (Cheers.)
Yet humble though their pretensions be, there was no profession,
trade, or calling where such a combination of requisites, mental
and bodily, were indispensable. In all others the principal may
practise after he has been visited by the afflicting hand of
Providence--some by the loss of limb, some of voice, and many,
when the faculty of the mind is on the wane, may be assisted by
dutiful children or devoted servants. Not so the actor, He must
retain all he ever did possess, or sink dejected to a mournful
home. (Applause.) Yet while they are toiling for ephemeral
theatric fame, how very few ever possess the means of hoarding in
their youth that which would give bread in old age! But now a
brighter prospect dawned upon them, and to the success of this
their infant establishment they looked with hope, as to a
comfortable and peaceful home in their declining years. He
concluded by tendering to the meeting, in the name of his
brethren and sisters, their unfeigned thanks for their liberal
support, and begged to propose "The Health of the Patrons of the
Edinburgh Theatrical Fund." (Cheers.)
Lord MEADOWBANK said that, by desire of his Hon. Friend in the
chair, and of his Noble Friend at his right hand, he begged leave
to return thanks for the honour which had been conferred on the
Patrons of this excellent institution. He could answer for
himself--he could answer for them all--that they were deeply
impressed with the meritorious objects which it has in view, and
of their anxious wish to promote its interests. For himself, he
hoped he might be permitted to say that he was rather surprised
at finding his own name as one of the Patrons, associated with so
many individuals of high rank and powerful influence. But it was
an excuse for those who had placed him in a situation so
honourable and so distinguished, that when this charity was
instituted he happened to hold a high and responsible station
under the Crown, when he might have been of use in assisting and
promoting its objects. His Lordship much feared that he could
have little expectation, situated as he now was, of doing either;
but he could confidently assert that few things would give him
greater gratification than being able to contribute to its
prosperity and support. And indeed, when one recollects the
pleasure which at all periods of life he has received from the
exhibitions of the stage, and the exertions of the meritorious
individuals for whose aid this Fund has been established, he must
be divested both of gratitude and feeling who would not give his
best endeavours to promote its welfare. And now, that he might
in some measure repay the gratification which had been afforded
himself, he would beg leave to propose a toast, the health of one
of the Patrons, a great and distinguished individual, whose name
must always stand by itself, and which, in an assembly such as
this, or in any other assembly of Scotsmen, can never be
received, not, he would say, with ordinary feelings of pleasure
or of delight, but with those of rapture and enthusiasm. In
doing so he felt that he stood in a somewhat new situation.
Whoever had been called upon to propose the health of his Hon.
Friend to whom he alluded, some time ago, would have found
himself enabled, from the mystery in which certain matters were
involved, to gratify himself and his auditors by allusions which
found a responding chord in their own feelings, and to deal in
the language, the sincere language, of panegyric, without
intruding on the modesty of the great individual to whom he
referred. But it was no longer possible, consistently with the
respect to one's auditors, to use upon this subject terms either
of mystification or of obscure or indirect allusion. The clouds
have been dispelled; the DARKNESS VISIBLE has been cleared away;
and the Great Unknown--the minstrel of our native land--the
mighty magician who has rolled back the current of time, and
conjured up before our living senses the men and the manners of
days which have long passed away--stands revealed to the hearts
and the eyes of his affectionate and admiring countrymen. If he
himself were capable of imagining all that belonged to this
mighty subject--were he even able to give utterance to all that,
as a friend, as a man, and as a Scotsman, he must feel regarding
it--yet knowing, as he well did, that this illustrious individual
was not more distinguished for his towering talents than for
those feelings which rendered such allusions ungrateful to
himself, however sparingly introduced, he would, on that account,
still refrain from doing that which would otherwise be no less
pleasing to him than to his audience. But this his Lordship,
hoped he would be allowed to say (his auditors would not pardon
him were he to say less), we owe to him, as a people, a large and
heavy debt of gratitude. He it is who has opened to foreigners
the grand and characteristic beauties of our country. It is to
him that we owe that our gallant ancestors and the struggles of
our illustrious patriots--who fought and bled in order to obtain
and secure that independence and that liberty we now enjoy--have
obtained a fame no longer confined to the boundaries of a remote
and comparatively obscure nation, and who has called down upon
their struggles for glory and freedom the admiration of foreign
countries. He it is who has conferred a new reputation on our
national character, and bestowed on Scotland an imperishable
name, were it only by her having given birth to himself. (Loud
and rapturous applause.)
Sir WALTER SCOTT certainly did not think that, in coming here to-
day, he would have the task of acknowledging, before three
hundred gentlemen, a secret which, considering that it was
communicated to more than twenty people, had been remarkably well
kept. He was now before the bar of his country, and might be
understood to be on trial before Lord Meadowbank as an offender;
yet he was sure that every impartial jury would bring in a
verdict of Not Proven. He did not now think it necessary to
enter into the reasons of his long silence. Perhaps caprice
might have a consider able share in it. He had now to say,
however, that the merits of these works, if they had any, and
their faults, were entirely imputable to himself. (Long and loud
cheering.) He was afraid to think on what he had done. "Look
on't again I dare not." He had thus far unbosomed himself and he
knew that it would be reported to the public. He meant, then,
seriously to state, that when he said he was the author, he was
the total and undivided author. With the exception of
quotations, there was not a single word that was not derived from
himself, or suggested in the course of his reading. The wand was
now broken, and the book buried. You will allow me further to
say, with Prospero, it is your breath that has filled my sails,
and to crave one single toast in the capacity of the author of
these novels; and he would dedicate a bumper to the health of one
who has represented some of those characters, of which he had
endeavoured to give the skeleton, with a degree of liveliness
which rendered him grateful. He would propose "The Health of
his friend Bailie Nicol Jarvie"--(loud applause)--and he was sure
that when the author of Waverley and Rob Roy drinks to Nicol
Jarvie, it would be received with that degree of applause to
which that gentleman has always been accustomed, and that they
would take care that on the present occasion it should be
PRODIGIOUS! (Long and vehement applause.)
Mr. MACKAY, who here spoke with great humour in the character of
Bailie Jarvie.--My conscience! My worthy father the deacon could
not have believed that his son could hae had sic a compliment
paid to him by the Great Unknown!
Sir WALTER SCOTT.--The Small Known now, Mr. Bailie.
Mr. MACKAY.--He had been long identified with the Bailie, and he
was vain of the cognomen which he had now worn for eight years;
and he questioned if any of his brethren in the Council had given
such universal satisfaction. (Loud laughter and applause.)
Before he sat down, he begged to propose "The Lord Provost and
the City of Edinburgh."
Sir WALTER SCOTT apologized for the absence of the Lord Provost,
who had gone to London on public business.
Tune--"Within a mile of Edinburgh town."
Sir WALTER SCOTT gave "The Duke of Wellington and the army."
Glee--"How merrily we live."
Lord Melville and the Navy, that fought till they left nobody to
fight with, like an arch sportsman who clears all and goes after
the game."
Mr. PAT. ROBERTSON.--They had heard this evening a toast, which
had been received with intense delight, which will be published
in every newspaper, and will be hailed with joy by all Europe.
He had one toast assigned him which he had great pleasure in
giving. He was sure that the stage had in all ages a great
effect on the morals and manners of the people. It was very
desirable that the stage should be well regulated; and there was
no criterion by which its regulation could be better determined
than by the moral character and personal respectability of the
performers. He was not one of those stern moralists who objected
to the theatre. The most fastidious moralist could not possibly
apprehend any injury from the stage of Edinburgh, as it was
presently managed, and so long as it was adorned by that
illustrious individual, Mrs. Henry Siddons, whose public
exhibitions were not more remarkable for feminine grace and
delicacy than was her private character for every virtue which
could be admired in domestic life. He would conclude with
reciting a few words from Shakespeare, in a spirit not of
contradiction to those stern moralists who disliked the theatre,
but of meekness: "Good, my lord, will you see the players well
bestowed? Do you hear, let them be well used, for they are the
abstract and brief chronicles of the time." He then gave "Mrs.
Henry Siddons, and success to the Theatre Royal of Edinburgh."
Mr. MURRAY.--Gentlemen, I rise to return thanks for the honour
you have done Mrs. Siddons, in doing which I am somewhat
difficulted, from the extreme delicacy which attends a brother's
expatiating upon a sister's claims to honours publicly paid--
(hear, hear)--yet, gentlemen, your kindness emboldens me to say
that, were I to give utterance to all a brother's feelings, I
should not exaggerate those claims. (Loud applause.) I
therefore, gentlemen, thank you most cordially for the honour you
have done her, and shall now request permission to make an
observation on the establishment of the Edinburgh Theatrical
Fund. Mr. Mackay has done Mrs. Henry Siddons and myself the
honour to ascribe the establishment to us. But no, gentlemen, it
owes its origin to a higher source--the publication of the novel
of Rob Roy--the unprecedented success of the opera adapted from
that popular production. (Hear, hear.) It was that success which
relieved the Edinburgh Theatre from its difficulties, and enabled
Mrs. Siddons to carry into effect the establishment of a fund she
had long desired, but was prevented from effecting from the
unsettled state of her theatrical concerns. I therefore hope
that in future years, when the aged and infirm actor derives
relief from this fund, he will, in the language of the gallant
Highlander, "Cast his eye to good old Scotland, and not forget
Rob Roy." (Loud applause.)
Sir WALTER SCOTT here stated that Mrs. Siddons wanted the means
but not the will of beginning the Theatrical Fund. He here
alluded to the great merits of Mr. Murray's management, and to
his merits as an actor, which were of the first order, and of
which every person who attends the Theatre must be sensible; and
after alluding to the embarrassments with which the Theatre had
been at one period threatened, he concluded by giving "The Health
of Mr. Murray," which was drunk with three times three.
Mr. MURRAY.--Gentlemen, I wish I could believe that in any degree
I merited the compliments with which it has pleased Sir Walter
Scott to preface the proposal of my health, or the very
flattering manner in which you have done me the honour to receive
it. The approbation of such an assembly is most gratifying to
me, and might encourage feelings of vanity, were not such
feelings crushed by my conviction that no man holding the
situation I have so long held in Edinburgh could have failed,
placed in the peculiar circumstances in which I have been placed.
Gentlemen, I shall not insult your good taste by eulogiums upon
your judgment or kindly feeling, though to the first I owe any
improvement I may have made as an actor, and certainly my success
as a manager to the second. (Applause.) When, upon the death of
my dear brother, the late Mr. Siddons, it was proposed that I
should undertake the management of the Edinburgh Theatre, I
confess I drew back, doubting my capability to free it from the
load of debt and difficulty with which it was surrounded. In
this state of anxiety, I solicited the advice of one who had ever
honoured me with his kindest regard, and whose name no member of
my profession can pronounce without feelings of the deepest
respect and gratitude. I allude to the late Mr. John Kemble.
(Great applause.) To him I applied, and with the repetition of
his advice I shall cease to trespass upon your time--(hear, hear)
--"My dear William, fear not. Integrity and assiduity must prove
an overmatch for all difficulty; and though I approve your not
indulging a vain confidence in your own ability, and viewing with
respectful apprehension the judgment of the audience you have to
act before, yet be assured that judgment will ever be tempered by
the feeling that you are acting for the widow and the
fatherless." (Loud applause.) Gentlemen, those words have never
passed from my mind; and I feel convinced that you have pardoned
my many errors, from the feeling that I was striving for the
widow and the fatherless. (Long and enthusiastic applause
followed Mr. Murray's address.)
Sir WALTER SCOTT gave "The Health of the Stewards."
Mr. VANDENHOFF.---Mr. President and Gentlemen, the honour
conferred upon the Stewards, in the very flattering compliment
you have just paid us, calls forth our warmest acknowledgments.
In tendering you our thanks for the approbation you have been
pleased to express of our humble exertions, I would beg leave to
advert to the cause in which we have been engaged. Yet,
surrounded as I am by the genius--the eloquence--of this
enlightened city, I cannot but feel the presumption which
ventures to address you on so interesting a subject. Accustomed
to speak in the language of others, I feel quite at a loss for
terms wherein to clothe the sentiments excited by the present
occasion. (Applause.) The nature of the institution which has
sought your fostering patronage, and the objects which it
contemplates, have been fully explained to you. But, gentlemen,
the relief which it proposes is not a gratuitous relief, but to
be purchased by the individual contribution of its members
towards the general good. This Fund lends no encouragement to
idleness or improvidence, but it offers an opportunity to
prudence in vigour and youth to make provision against the
evening of life and its attendant infirmity. A period is fixed
at which we admit the plea of age as an exemption from
professional labour. It is painful to behold the veteran on the
stage (compelled by necessity) contending against physical decay,
mocking the joyousness of mirth with the feebleness of age, when
the energies decline, when the memory fails! and "the big, manly
voice, turning again towards childish treble, pipes and whistles
in the sound." We would remove him from the mimic scene, where
fiction constitutes the charm; we would not view old age
caricaturing itself. (Applause.) But as our means may be found,
in time of need, inadequate to the fulfilment of our wishes--
fearful of raising expectations which we may be unable to
gratify--desirous not "to keep the word of promise to the ear,
and break it to the hope"--we have presumed to court the
assistance of the friends of the drama to strengthen our infant
institution. Our appeal has been successful beyond our most
sanguine expectations. The distinguished patronage conferred on
us by your presence on this occasion, and the substantial support
which your benevolence has so liberally afforded to our
institution, must impress every member of the Fund with the most
grateful sentiments--sentiments which no language can express, no
time obliterate. (Applause.) I will not trespass longer on your
attention. I would the task of acknowledging our obligation had
fallen into abler hands. (Hear, hear.) In the name of the
Stewards, I most respectfully and cordially thank you for the
honour you have done us, which greatly overpays our poor
endeavours. (Applause.)
[This speech, though rather inadequately reported, was one of the
best delivered on this occasion. That it was creditable to Mr.
Vandenhoff's taste and feelings, the preceding sketch will show;
but how much it was so, it does not show.]
Mr. J. CAY gave "Professor Wilson and the University of
Edinburgh, of which he was one of the brightest ornaments"
Lord MEADOWBANK, after a suitable eulogium, gave "The Earl of
Fife," which was drunk with three times three.
Earl FIFE expressed his high gratification at the honour
conferred on him. He intimated his approbation of the
institution, and his readiness to promote its success by every
means in his power. He concluded with giving "The Health of the
Company of Edinburgh."
Mr. JONES, on rising to return thanks, being received with
considerable applause, said he was truly grateful for the kind
encouragement he had experienced, but the novelty of the
situation in which he now was renewed all the feelings he
experienced when he first saw himself announced in the bills as a
young gentleman, being his first appearance on any stage.
(Laughter and applause.) Although in the presence of those whose
indulgence had, in another sphere, so often shielded him from the
penalties of inability, he was unable to execute the task which
had so unexpectedly devolved upon him in behalf of his brethren
and himself. He therefore begged the company to imagine all that
grateful hearts could prompt the most eloquent to utter, and that
would be a copy of their feelings. (Applause.) He begged to
trespass another moment on their attention, for the purpose of
expressing the thanks of the members of the Fund to the Gentlemen
of the Edinburgh Professional Society of Musicians, who, finding
that this meeting was appointed to take place on the same evening
with their concert, had, in the handsomest manner, agreed to
postpone it. Although it was his duty thus to preface the toast
he had to propose, he was certain the meeting required no further
inducement than the recollection of the pleasure the exertions of
those gentlemen had often afforded them within those walls, to
join heartily in drinking "Health and Prosperity to the Edinburgh
Professional Society of Musicians." (Applause.)
Mr. PAT. ROBERTSON Proposed "The Health of Mr. Jeffrey," whose
absence was owing to indisposition. The public was well aware
that he was the most distinguished advocate at the bar. He was
likewise distinguished for the kindness, frankness, and cordial
manner in which he communicated with the junior members of the
profession, to the esteem of whom his splendid talents would
always entitle him.
Mr. J. MACONOCHIE gave "The Health of Mrs. Siddons, senior, the
most distinguished ornament of the stage."
Sir W. SCOTT said that if anything could reconcile him to old
age, it was the reflection that he had seen the rising as well as
the setting sun of Mrs. Siddons. He remembered well their
breakfasting near to the Theatre--waiting the whole day--the
crushing at the doors at six o'clock--and their going in and
counting their fingers till seven o'clock. But the very first
step--the very first word which she uttered--was sufficient to
overpay him for all his labours. The house was literally
electrified; and it was only from witnessing the effects of her
genius that he could guess to what a pitch theatrical excellence
could be carried. Those young gentlemen who have only seen the
setting sun of this distinguished performer, beautiful and serene
as that was, must give us old fellows, who have seen its rise and
its meridian, leave to hold our heads a little higher.
Mr. DUNDAS gave "The Memory of Home, the author of Douglas."
Mr. MACKAY here announced that the subscriptions for the night
amounted to L280, and he expressed gratitude for this substantial
proof of their kindness. [We are happy to state that
subscriptions have since flowed in very liberally.]
Mr. MACKAY here entertained the company with a pathetic song.
Sir WALTER SCOTT apologized for having so long forgotten their
native land. He would now give "Scotland, the land of Cakes."
He would give every river, every loch, every hill, from Tweed to
Johnnie Groat's house--every lass in her cottage and countess in
her castle--and may her sons stand by her, as their fathers did
before them; and he who would not drink a bumper to his toast,
may he never drink whisky more!
Sir WALTER SCOTT here gave "Lord Meadowbank," who returned
thanks.
Mr. H. G. BELL said that he should not have ventured to intrude
himself upon the attention of the assembly, did he not feel
confident that the toast he begged to have the honour to propose
would make amends for the very imperfect manner in which he might
express his sentiments regarding it. It had been said that,
notwithstanding the mental supremacy of the present age--
notwithstanding that the page of our history was studded with
names destined also for the page of immortality--that the genius
of Shakespeare was extinct, and the fountain of his inspiration
dried up. It might be that these observations were unfortunately
correct, or it might be that we were bewildered with a name, not
disappointed of the reality; for though Shakespeare had brought a
Hamlet, an Othello, and a Macbeth, an Ariel, a Juliet, and a
Rosalind, upon the stage, were there not authors living who had
brought as varied, as exquisitely painted, and as undying a range
of characters into our hearts? The shape of the mere mould into
which genius poured its golden treasures was surely a matter of
little moment, let it be called a Tragedy, a Comedy, or a
Waverley Novel. But even among the dramatic authors of the
present day, he was unwilling to allow that there was a great and
palpable decline from the glory of preceding ages, and his toast
alone would bear him out in denying the truth of the proposition.
After eulogizing the names of Baillie, Byron, Coleridge, Maturin,
and others, he begged to have the honour of proposing "The Health
of James Sheridan Knowles."
Sir WALTER SCOTT. Gentlemen, I crave a bumper all over. The
last toast reminds me of a neglect of duty. Unaccustomed to a
public duty of this kind, errors in conducting the ceremonial of
it may be excused, and omissions pardoned. Perhaps I have made
one or two omissions in the course of the evening for which I
trust you will grant me your pardon and indulgence. One thing in
particular I have omitted, and I would now wish to make amends
for it by a libation of reverence and respect to the memory of
SHAKESPEARE. He was a man of universal genius, and from a period
soon after his own era to the present day he has been universally
idolized. When I come to his honoured name, I am like the sick
man who hung up his crutches at the shrine, and was obliged to
confess that he did not walk better than before. It is indeed
difficult, gentlemen, to compare him to any other individual.
The only one to whom I call at all compare him is the wonderful
Arabian dervise, who dived into the body of each, and in this way
became familiar with the thoughts and secrets of their hearts.
He was a man of obscure origin, and, as a player, limited in his
acquirements; but he was born evidently with a universal genius.
His eyes glanced at all the varied aspects of life, and his fancy
portrayed with equal talents the king on the throne and the clown
who crackles his chestnuts at a Christmas fire. Whatever note he
takes, he strikes it just and true, and awakens a corresponding
chord in our own bosoms, Gentlemen, I propose "The Memory of
William Shakespeare."
Glee--"Lightly tread, 'tis hallowed ground."
After the glee, Sir WALTER rose and begged to propose as a toast
the health of a lady, whose living merit is not a little
honourable to Scotland. The toast (said he) is also flattering
to the national vanity of a Scotchman, as the lady whom I intend
to propose is a native of this country. From the public her
works have met with the most favourable reception. One piece of
hers, in particular, was often acted here of late years, and gave
pleasure of no mean kind to many brilliant and fashionable
audiences. In her private character she (he begged leave to say)
is as remarkable as in a public sense she is for her genius. In
short, he would in one word name--"Joanna Baillie."
This health being drunk, Mr. THORNE was called on for a song, and
sung, with great taste and feeling, "The Anchor's Weighed."
W. MENZIES, Esq., Advocate, rose to propose the health of a
gentleman for many years connected at intervals with the dramatic
art in Scotland. Whether we look at the range of characters he
performs, or at the capacity which he evinces in executing those
which he undertakes, he is equally to he admired. In all his
parts he is unrivalled. The individual to whom he alluded is
(said he) well known to the gentlemen present, in the characters
of Malvolio, Lord Ogleby, and the Green Man; and in addition to
his other qualities, he merits, for his perfection in these
characters, the grateful sense of this meeting. He would wish,
in the first place, to drink his health as an actor. But he was
not less estimable in domestic life, and as a private gentleman;
and when he announced him as one whom the chairman had honoured
with his friendship, he was sure that all present would cordially
join him in drinking "The Health of Mr. Terry."
Mr. WILLIAM ALLAN, banker, said that he did not rise with the
intention of making a speech. He merely wished to contribute in
a few words to the mirth of the evening--an evening which
certainly had not passed off without some blunders. It had been
understood--at least he had learnt or supposed from the
expressions of Mr. Pritchard--that it would be sufficient to put
a paper, with the name of the contributor, into the box, and that
the gentleman thus contributing would be called on for the money
next morning. He, for his part, had committed a blunder but it
might serve as a caution to those who may be present at the
dinner of next year. He had merely put in his name, written on a
slip of paper, without the money. But he would recommend that,
as some of the gentlemen might be in the same situation, the box
should be again sent round, and he was confident that they, as
well as he, would redeem their error.
Sir WALTER SCOTT said that the meeting was somewhat in the
situation of Mrs. Anne Page, who had L300 and possibilities. We
have already got, said he, L280, but I should like, I confess, to
have the L300. He would gratify himself by proposing the health
of an honourable person, the Lord Chief Baron, whom England has
sent to us, and connecting with it that of his "yokefellow on the
bench," as Shakespeare says, Mr. Baron Clerk--The Court of
Exchequer.
Mr. Baron CLERK regretted the absence of his learned brother.
None, he was sure, could be more generous in his nature, or more
ready to help a Scottish purpose.
Sir WALTER SCOTT,--There is one who ought to be remembered on
this occasion. He is, indeed, well entitled to our grateful
recollection--one, in short, to whom the drama in this city owes
much. He succeeded, not without trouble, and perhaps at some
considerable sacrifice, in establishing a theatre. The younger
part of the company may not recollect the theatre to which I
allude, but there are some who with me may remember by name a
place called Carrubber's Close. There Allan Ramsay established
his little theatre. His own pastoral was not fit for the stage,
but it has its admirers in those who love the Doric language in
which it is written; and it is not without merits of a very
peculiar kind. But laying aside all considerations of his
literary merit, Allan was a good, jovial, honest fellow, who
could crack a bottle with the best. "The Memory of Allan
Ramsay."
Mr. MURRAY, on being requested, sung "'Twas merry in the hall,"
and at the conclusion was greeted with repeated rounds of
applause.
Mr. JONES.--One omission I conceive has been made. The cause of
the Fund has been ably advocated, but it is still susceptible, in
my opinion, of an additional charm--
"Without the smile from partial beauty won,
Oh, what were man?--a world without a sun!"
And there would not be a darker spot in poetry than would be the
corner in Shakespeare Square, if, like its fellow, the Register
Office, the Theatre were deserted by the ladies. They are, in
fact, our most attractive stars. "The Patronesses of the
Theatre, the Ladies of the City of Edinburgh." This toast I ask
leave to drink with all the honours which conviviality can
confer.
Mr. PATRICK ROBERTSON would be the last man willingly to
introduce any topic calculated to interrupt the harmony of the
evening; yet he felt himself treading upon ticklish ground when
he approached the region of the Nor' Loch. He assured the
company, however, that he was not about to enter on the subject
of the Improvement Bill. They all knew that if the public were
unanimous--if the consent of all parties were obtained--if the
rights and interests of everybody were therein attended to,
saved, reserved, respected, and excepted--if everybody agreed to
it--and, finally, a most essential point, if nobody opposed it
--then, and in that case, and provided also that due intimation
were given, the bill in question might pass--would pass--or
might, could, would, or should pass--all expenses being defrayed.
(Laughter.) He was the advocate of neither champion, and would
neither avail himself of the absence of the Right Hon. the Lord
Provost, nor take advantage of the non-appearance of his friend,
Mr. Cockburn. (Laughter.) But in the midst of these civic broils
there had been elicited a ray of hope that, at some future
period, in Bereford Park, or some other place, if all parties
were consulted and satisfied, and if intimation were duly made at
the kirk doors of all the parishes in Scotland, in terms of the
statute in that behalf provided--the people of Edinburgh might by
possibility get a new Theatre. (Cheers and laughter.) But
wherever the belligerent powers might be pleased to set down this
new Theatre, he was sure they all hoped to meet the Old Company
in it. He should therefore propose "Better Accommodation to the
Old Company in the new Theatre, site unknown."--Mr. Robertson's
speech was most humorously given, and he sat down amidst loud
cheers and laughter.
Sir WALTER SCOTT.--Wherever the new Theatre is built, I hope it
will not be large. There are two errors which we commonly
commit--the one arising from our pride, the other from our
poverty. If there are twelve plans, it is odds but the largest,
without any regard to comfort, or an eye to the probable expense,
is adopted. There was the College projected on this scale, and
undertaken in the same manner, and who shall see the end of it?
It has been building all my life, and may probably last during
the lives of my children, and my children's children. Let not
the same prophetic hymn be sung when we commence a new Theatre,
which was performed on the occasion of laying the foundation-
stone of a certain edifice, "Behold the endless work begun."
Playgoing folks should attend somewhat to convenience. The new
Theatre should, in the first place, be such as may be finished in
eighteen months or two years; and, in the second place, it should
be one in which we can hear our old friends with comfort. It is
better that a moderate-sized house should be crowded now and
then, than to have a large theatre with benches continually
empty, to the discouragement of the actors and the discomfort of
the spectators. (Applause.) He then commented in flattering
terms on the genius of Mackenzie and his private worth, and
concluded by proposing "The Health of Henry Mackenzie, Esq."
Immediately afterwards he said:--Gentlemen, it is now wearing
late, and I shall request permission to retire. Like Partridge,
I may say, "NON SUM QUALIS ERAM." At my time of day I can agree
with Lord Ogilvie as to his rheumatism, and say, "There's a
twinge." I hope, therefore, you will excuse me for leaving the
chair.--The worthy Baronet then retired amidst long, loud, and
rapturous cheering.
Mr. PATRICK ROBERTSON was then called to the chair by common
acclamation.
Gentlemen, said Mr. Robertson, I take the liberty of asking you
to fill a bumper to the very brim. There is not one of us who
will not remember, while he lives, being present at this day's
festival, and the declaration made this night by the gentleman
who has just left the chair. That declaration has rent the veil
from the features of the Great Unknown--a name which must now
merge in the name of the Great Known. It will be henceforth
coupled with the name of SCOTT, which will become familiar like a
household word. We have heard the confession from his own
immortal lips--(cheering)--and we cannot dwell with too much or
too fervent praise on the merits of the greatest man whom
Scotland has produced.
After which several other toasts were given, and Mr. Robertson
left the room about half-past eleven. A few choice spirits,
however, rallied round Captain Broadhead of the 7th Hussars, who
was called to the chair, and the festivity was prolonged till an
early hour on Saturday morning.
The band of the Theatre occupied the gallery, and that of the 7th
Hussars the end of the room, opposite the chair, whose
performances were greatly admired. It is but justice to Mr. Gibb
to state that the dinner was very handsome (though slowly served
in), and the wines good. The attention of the stewards was
exemplary. Mr. Murray and Mr. Vandenhoff, with great good taste,
attended on Sir Walter Scott's right and left, and we know that
he has expressed himself much gratified by their anxious
politeness and sedulity.
*
CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGATE - INTRODUCTORY.
CHAPTER I.
MR. CHRYSTAL CROFTANGRY'S ACCOUNT OF HIMSELF.
Sic itur ad astra.
"This is the path to heaven." Such is the ancient motto attached
to the armorial bearings of the Canongate, and which is
inscribed, with greater or less propriety, upon all the public
buildings, from the church to the pillory, in the ancient quarter
of Edinburgh which bears, or rather once bore, the same relation
to the Good Town that Westminster does to London, being still
possessed of the palace of the sovereign, as it formerly was
dignified by the residence of the principal nobility and gentry.
I may therefore, with some propriety, put the same motto at the
head of the literary undertaking by which I hope to illustrate
the hitherto undistinguished name of Chrystal Croftangry.
The public may desire to know something of an author who pitches
at such height his ambitious expectations. The gentle reader,
therefore--for I am much of Captain Bobadil's humour, and could
to no other extend myself so far--the GENTLE reader, then, will
be pleased to understand that I am a a Scottish gentleman of the
old school, with a fortune, temper, and person, rather the worse
for wear. I have known the world for these forty years, having
written myself man nearly since that period--and I do not think
it is much mended. But this is an opinion which I keep to myself
when I am among younger folk, for I recollect, in my youth,
quizzing the Sexagenarians who carried back their ideas of a
perfect state of society to the days of laced coats and triple
ruffles, and some of them to the blood and blows of the Forty-
five. Therefore I am cautious in exercising the right of
censorship, which is supposed to be acquired by men arrived at,
or approaching, the mysterious period of life, when the numbers
of seven and nine multiplied into each other, form what sages
have termed the Grand Climacteric.
Of the earlier part of my life it is only necessary to say, that
I swept the boards of the Parliament-House with the skirts of my
gown for the usual number of years during which young Lairds were
in my time expected to keep term--got no fees--laughed, and made
others laugh--drank claret at Bayle's, Fortune's, and Walker's--
and ate oysters in the Covenant Close.
Becoming my own master, I flung my gown at the bar-keeper, and
commenced gay man on my own account. In Edinburgh, I ran into
all the expensive society which the place then afforded. When I
went to my house in the shire of Lanark, I emulated to the utmost
the expenses of men of large fortune, and had my hunters, my
first-rate pointers, my game-cocks, and feeders. I can more
easily forgive myself for these follies, than for others of a
still more blamable kind, so indifferently cloaked over, that my
poor mother thought herself obliged to leave my habitation, and
betake herself to a small inconvenient jointure-house, which she
occupied till her death. I think, however, I was not exclusively
to blame in this separation, and I believe my mother afterwards
condemned herself for being too hasty. Thank God, the adversity
which destroyed the means of continuing my dissipation, restored
me to the affections of my surviving parent.
My course of life could not last. I ran too fast to run long;
and when I would have checked my career, I was perhaps too near
the brink of the precipice. Some mishaps I prepared by my own
folly, others came upon me unawares. I put my estate out to
nurse to a fat man of business, who smothered the babe he should
have brought back to me in health and strength, and, in dispute
with this honest gentleman, I found, like a skilful general, that
my position would be most judiciously assumed by taking it up
near the Abbey of Holyrood. [See Note 1.--Holyrood.] It was then
I first became acquainted with the quarter, which my little work
will, I hope, render immortal, and grew familiar with those
magnificent wilds, through which the Kings of Scotland once
chased the dark-brown deer, but which were chiefly recommended to
me in those days, by their being inaccessible to those
metaphysical persons, whom the law of the neighbouring country
terms John Doe and Richard Roe. In short, the precincts of the
palace are now best known as being a place of refuge at any time
from all pursuit for civil debt.
Dire was the strife betwixt my quondam doer and myself; during
which my motions were circumscribed, like those of some conjured
demon, within a circle, which, "beginning at the northern gate of
the King's Park, thence running northways, is bounded on the left
by the King's garden-wall, and the gutter, or kennel, in a line
wherewith it crosses the High Street to the Watergate, and
passing through the sewer, is bounded by the walls of the Tennis
Court and Physic Gardens, etc. It then follows the wall of the
churchyard, joins the north west wall of St Ann's Yards, and
going east to the clackmill-house, turns southward to the
turnstile in the King's Park wall, and includes the whole King's
Park within the Sanctuary."
These limits, which I abridge from the accurate Maitland, once
marked the Girth, or Asylum, belonging to the Abbey of Holyrood,
and which, being still an appendage to the royal palace, has
retained the privilege of an asylum for civil debt. One would
think the space sufficiently extensive for a man to stretch his
limbs in, as, besides a reasonable proportion of level ground
(considering that the scene lies in Scotland), it includes within
its precincts the mountain of Arthur's Seat and the rocks and
pasture land called Salisbury Crags. But yet it is inexpressible
how, after a certain time had elapsed, I used to long for Sunday,
which permitted me to extend my walk without limitation. During
the other six days of the week I felt a sickness of heart, which,
but for the speedy approach of the hebdomadal day of liberty, I
could hardly have endured. I experienced the impatience of a
mastiff who tugs in vain to extend the limits which his chain
permits.
Day after day I walked by the side of the kennel which divides
the Sanctuary from the unprivileged part of the Canongate; and
though the month was July, and the scene the old town of
Edinburgh, I preferred it to the fresh air and verdant turf which
I might have enjoyed in the King's Park, or to the cool and
solemn gloom of the portico which surrounds the palace. To an
indifferent person either side of the gutter would have seemed
much the same, the houses equally mean, the children as ragged
and dirty, the carmen as brutal--the whole forming the same
picture of low life in a deserted and impoverished quarter of a
large city. But to me the gutter or kennel was what the brook
Kidron was to Shimei: death was denounced against him should he
cross it, doubtless because it was known to his wisdom who
pronounced the doom that, from the time the crossing the stream
was debarred, the devoted man's desire to transgress the precept
would become irresistible, and he would be sure to draw down on
his head the penalty which he had already justly incurred by
cursing the anointed of God. For my part, all Elysium seemed
opening on the other side of the kennel; and I envied the little
blackguards, who, stopping the current with their little dam-
dykes of mud, had a right to stand on either side of the nasty
puddle which best pleased them. I was so childish as even to
make an occasional excursion across, were it only for a few
yards, and felt the triumph of a schoolboy, who, trespassing in
an orchard, hurries back again with a fluttering sensation of joy
and terror, betwixt the pleasure of having executed his purpose
and the fear of being taken or discovered.
I have sometimes asked myself what I should have done in case of
actual imprisonment, since I could not bear without impatience a
restriction which is comparatively a mere trifle; but I really
could never answer the question to my own satisfaction. I have
all my life hated those treacherous expedients called MEZZO-
TERMINI, and it is possible with this disposition I might have
endured more patiently an absolute privation of liberty than the
more modified restrictions to which my residence in the Sanctuary
at this period subjected me. If, however, the feelings I then
experienced were to increase in intensity according to the
difference between a jail and my actual condition, I must have
hanged myself, or pined to death--there could have been no other
alternative.
Amongst many companions who forgot and neglected me, of course,
when my difficulties seemed to be inextricable, I had one true
friend; and that friend was a barrister, who knew the laws of his
country well, and tracing them up to the spirit of equity and
justice in which they originate, had repeatedly prevented, by his
benevolent and manly exertions, the triumphs of selfish cunning
over simplicity and folly. He undertook my cause, with the
assistance of a solicitor of a character similar to his own. My
quondam doer had ensconced himself chin-deep among legal
trenches, hornworks, and covered ways; but my two protectors
shelled him out of his defences, and I was at length a free man,
at liberty to go or stay wheresoever my mind listed.
I left my lodgings as hastily as if it had been a pest-house. I
did not even stop to receive some change that was due to me on
settling with my landlady, and I saw the poor woman stand at her
door looking after my precipitate flight, and shaking her head as
she wrapped the silver which she was counting for me in a
separate piece of paper, apart from the store in her own moleskin
purse. An honest Highlandwoman was Janet MacEvoy, and deserved a
greater remuneration, had I possessed the power of bestowing it.
But my eagerness of delight was too extreme to pause for
explanation with Janet. On I pushed through the groups of
children, of whose sports I had been so often a lazy, lounging
spectator. I sprung over the gutter as if it had been the fatal
Styx, and I a ghost, which, eluding Pluto's authority, was making
its escape from Limbo lake. My friend had difficulty to restrain
me from running like a madman up the street; and in spite of his
kindness and hospitality, which soothed me for a day or two, I
was not quite happy until I found myself aboard of a Leith smack,
and, standing down the Firth with a fair wind, might snap my
fingers at the retreating outline of Arthur's Seat, to the
vicinity of which I had been so long confined.
It is not my purpose to trace my future progress through life. I
had extricated myself, or rather had been freed by my friends,
from the brambles and thickets of the law; but, as befell the
sheep in the fable, a great part of my fleece was left behind me.
Something remained, however: I was in the season for exertion,
and, as my good mother used to say, there was always life for
living folk. Stern necessity gave my manhood that prudence which
my youth was a stranger to. I faced danger, I endured fatigue, I
sought foreign climates, and proved that I belonged to the nation
which is proverbially patient of labour and prodigal of life.
Independence, like liberty to Virgil's shepherd, came late, but
came at last, with no great affluence in its train, but bringing
enough to support a decent appearance for the rest of my life,
and to induce cousins to be civil, and gossips to say, "I wonder
whom old Croft will make his heir? He must have picked up
something, and I should not be surprised if it prove more than
folk think of."
My first impulse when I returned home was to rush to the house of
my benefactor, the only man who had in my distress interested
himself in my behalf. He was a snuff-taker, and it had been the
pride of my heart to save the IPSA CORPORA of the first score of
guineas I could hoard, and to have them converted into as
tasteful a snuff-box as Rundell and Bridge could devise. This I
had thrust for security into the breast of my waistcoat, while,
impatient to transfer it to the person for whom it was destined,
I hastened to his house in Brown Square. When the front of the
house became visible a feeling of alarm checked me. I had been
long absent from Scotland; my friend was some years older than I;
he might have been called to the congregation of the just. I
paused, and gazed on the house as if I had hoped to form some
conjecture from the outward appearance concerning the state of
the family within. I know not how it was, but the lower windows
being all closed, and no one stirring, my sinister forebodings
were rather strengthened. I regretted now that I had not made
inquiry before I left the inn where I alighted from the mail-
coach. But it was too late; so I hurried on, eager to know the
best or the worst which I could learn.
The brass-plate bearing my friend's name and designation was
still on the door, and when it was opened the old domestic
appeared a good deal older, I thought, than he ought naturally to
have looked, considering the period of my absence. "Is Mr.
Sommerville at home?" said I, pressing forward.
"Yes, sir," said John, placing himself in opposition to my
entrance, "he is at home, but--"
"But he is not in," said I. "I remember your phrase of old,
John. Come, I will step into his room, and leave a line for
him."
John was obviously embarrassed by my familiarity. I was some
one, he saw, whom he ought to recollect. At the same time it was
evident he remembered nothing about me.
"Ay, sir, my master is in, and in his own room, but--"
I would not hear him out, but passed before him towards the well-
known apartment. A young lady came out of the room a little
disturbed, as it seemed, and said, "John, what is the matter?"
"A gentleman, Miss Nelly, that insists on seeing my master."
"A very old and deeply-indebted friend," said I, "that ventures
to press myself on my much-respected benefactor on my return from
abroad."
"Alas, sir," replied she, "my uncle would be happy to see you,
but--"
At this moment something was heard within the apartment like the
falling of a plate, or glass, and immediately after my friend's
voice called angrily and eagerly for his niece. She entered the
room hastily, and so did I. But it was to see a spectacle,
compared with which that of my benefactor stretched on his bier
would have been a happy one.
The easy-chair filled with cushions, the extended limbs swathed
in flannel, the wide wrapping-gown and nightcap, showed illness;
but the dimmed eye, once so replete with living fire--the blabber
lip, whose dilation and compression used to give such character
to his animated countenance--the stammering tongue, that once
poured forth such floods of masculine eloquence, and had often
swayed the opinion of the sages whom he addressed,--all these sad
symptoms evinced that my friend was in the melancholy condition
of those in whom the principle of animal life has unfortunately
survived that of mental intelligence. He gazed a moment at me,
but then seemed insensible of my presence, and went on--he, once
the most courteous and well-bred--to babble unintelligible but
violent reproaches against his niece and servant, because he
himself had dropped a teacup in attempting to place it on a table
at his elbow. His eyes caught a momentary fire from his
irritation; but he struggled in vain for words to express himself
adequately, as, looking from his servant to his niece, and then
to the table, he laboured to explain that they had placed it
(though it touched his chair) at too great a distance from him.
The young person, who had naturally a resigned Madonna-like
expression of countenance, listened to his impatient chiding with
the most humble submission, checked the servant, whose less
delicate feelings would have entered on his justification, and
gradually, by the sweet and soft tone of her voice, soothed to
rest the spirit of causeless irritation.
She then cast a look towards me, which expressed, "You see all
that remains of him whom you call friend." It seemed also to
say, "Your longer presence here can only be distressing to us
all."
"Forgive me, young lady," I said, as well as tears would permit;
"I am a person deeply obliged to your uncle. My name is
Croftangry."
"Lord! and that I should not hae minded ye, Maister Croftangry,"
said the servant. "Ay, I mind my master had muckle fash about
your job. I hae heard him order in fresh candles as midnight
chappit, and till't again. Indeed, ye had aye his gude word, Mr.
Croftangry, for a' that folks said about you."
"Hold your tongue, John," said the lady, somewhat angrily; and
then continued, addressing herself to me, "I am sure, sir, you
must be sorry to see my uncle in this state. I know you are his
friend. I have heard him mention your name, and wonder he never
heard from you." A new cut this, and it went to my heart. But
she continued, "I really do not know if it is right that any
should--If my uncle should know you, which I scarce think
possible, he would be much affected, and the doctor says that any
agitation--But here comes Dr. -- to give his own opinion."
Dr. -- entered. I had left him a middle-aged man. He was now an
elderly one; but still the same benevolent Samaritan, who went
about doing good, and thought the blessings of the poor as good a
recompense of his professional skill as the gold of the rich.
He looked at me with surprise, but the young lady said a word of
introduction, and I, who was known to the doctor formerly,
hastened to complete it. He recollected me perfectly, and
intimated that he was well acquainted with the reasons I had for
being deeply interested in the fate of his patient. He gave me a
very melancholy account of my poor friend, drawing me for that
purpose a little apart from the lady. "The light of life," he
said, "was trembling in the socket; he scarcely expected it would
ever leap up even into a momentary flash, but more was
impossible." He then stepped towards his patient, and put some
questions, to which the poor invalid, though he seemed to
recognize the friendly and familiar voice, answered only in a
faltering and uncertain manner.
The young lady, in her turn, had drawn back when the doctor
approached his patient. "You see how it is with him," said the
doctor, addressing me. "I have heard our poor friend, in one of
the most eloquent of his pleadings, give a description of this
very disease, which he compared to the tortures inflicted by
Mezentius when he chained the dead to the living. The soul, he
said, is imprisoned in its dungeon of flesh, and though retaining
its natural and unalienable properties, can no more exert them
than the captive enclosed within a prison-house can act as a free
agent. Alas! to see HIM, who could so well describe what this
malady was in others, a prey himself to its infirmities! I shall
never forget the solemn tone of expression with which he summed
up the incapacities of the paralytic--the deafened ear, the
dimmed eye, the crippled limbs--in the noble words of Juvenal,--
"'Omni
Membrorum damno major, dementia, quae nec
Nomina servorum, nec vultum agnoscit amici.'"
As the physician repeated these lines, a flash of intelligence
seemed to revive in the invalid's eye--sunk again--again
struggled, and he spoke more intelligibly than before, and in the
tone of one eager to say something which he felt would escape him
unless said instantly. "A question of death-bed, a question of
death-bed, doctor--a reduction EX CAPITE LECTI--Withering against
Wilibus--about the MORBUS SONTICUS. I pleaded the cause for
the pursuer--I, and--and--why, I shall forget my own name--I,
and--he that was the wittiest and the best-humoured man living--"
The description enabled the doctor to fill up the blank, and the
patient joyfully repeated the name suggested. "Ay, ay," he said,
"just he--Harry--poor Harry--" The light in his eye died away,
and he sunk back in his easy-chair.
"You have now seen more of our poor friend, Mr. Croftangry," said
the physician, "than I dared venture to promise you; and now I
must take my professional authority on me, and ask you to retire.
Miss Sommerville will, I am sure, let you know if a moment should
by any chance occur when her uncle can see you."
What could I do? I gave my card to the young lady, and taking my
offering from my bosom--"if my poor friend," I said, with accents
as broken almost as his own, "should ask where this came from,
name me, and say from the most obliged and most grateful man
alive. Say, the gold of which it is composed was saved by grains
at a time, and was hoarded with as much avarice as ever was a
miser's. To bring it here I have come a thousand miles; and now,
alas, I find him thus!"
I laid the box on the table, and was retiring with a lingering
step. The eye of the invalid was caught by it, as that of a
child by a glittering toy, and with infantine impatience he
faltered out inquiries of his niece. With gentle mildness she
repeated again and again who I was, and why I came, etc. I was
about to turn, and hasten from a scene so painful, when the
physician laid his hand on my sleeve. "Stop," he said, "there is
a change."
There was, indeed, and a marked one. A faint glow spread over
his pallid features--they seemed to gain the look of intelligence
which belongs to vitality--his eye once more kindled--his lip
coloured--and drawing himself up out of the listless posture he
had hitherto maintained, he rose without assistance. The doctor
and the servant ran to give him their support. He waved them
aside, and they were contented to place themselves in such a
position behind as might ensure against accident, should his
newly-acquired strength decay as suddenly as it had revived.
"My dear Croftangry," he said, in the tone of kindness of other
days, "I am glad to see you returned. You find me but poorly;
but my little niece here and Dr. -- are very kind. God bless
you, my dear friend! We shall not meet again till we meet in a
better world."
I pressed his extended hand to my lips--I pressed it to my bosom
--I would fain have flung myself on my knees; but the doctor,
leaving the patient to the young lady and the servant, who
wheeled forward his chair, and were replacing him in it, hurried
me out of the room. "My dear sir," he said, "you ought to be
satisfied; you have seen our poor invalid more like his former
self than he has been for months, or than he may be perhaps again
until all is over. The whole Faculty could not have assured such
an interval. I must see whether anything can be derived from it
to improve the general health. Pray, begone." The last argument
hurried me from the spot, agitated by a crowd of feelings, all of
them painful.
When I had overcome the shock of this great disappointment, I
renewed gradually my acquaintance with one or two old companions,
who, though of infinitely less interest to my feelings than my
unfortunate friend, served to relieve the pressure of actual
solitude, and who were not perhaps the less open to my advances
that I was a bachelor somewhat stricken in years, newly arrived
from foreign parts, and certainly independent, if not wealthy.
I was considered as a tolerable subject of speculation by some,
and I could not be burdensome to any. I was therefore, according
to the ordinary rule of Edinburgh hospitality, a welcome guest in
several respectable families. But I found no one who could
replace the loss I had sustained in my best friend and
benefactor. I wanted something more than mere companionship
could give me, and where was I to look for it? Among the
scattered remnants of those that had been my gay friends of yore?
Alas!
"Many a lad I loved was dead,
And many a lass grown old."
Besides, all community of ties between us had ceased to exist,
and such of former friends as were still in the world held their
life in a different tenor from what I did.
Some had become misers, and were as eager in saving sixpence as
ever they had been in spending a guinea. Some had turned
agriculturists; their talk was of oxen, and they were only fit
companions for graziers. Some stuck to cards, and though no
longer deep gamblers, rather played small game than sat out.
This I particularly despised. The strong impulse of gaming,
alas! I had felt in my time. It is as intense as it is
criminal; but it produces excitation and interest, and I can
conceive how it should become a passion with strong and powerful
minds. But to dribble away life in exchanging bits of painted
pasteboard round a green table for the piddling concern of a few
shillings, can only be excused in folly or superannuation. It is
like riding on a rocking-horse, where your utmost exertion never
carries you a foot forward; it is a kind of mental treadmill,
where you are perpetually climbing, but can never rise an inch.
From these hints, my readers will perceive I am incapacitated for
one of the pleasures of old age, which, though not mentioned by
Cicero, is not the least frequent resource in the present day--
the club-room, and the snug hand at whist.
To return to my old companions. Some frequented public
assemblies, like the ghost of Beau Nash, or any other beau of
half a century back, thrust aside by tittering youth, and pitied
by those of their own age. In fine, some went into devotion, as
the French term it, and others, I fear, went to the devil; a few
found resources in science and letters; one or two turned
philosophers in a small way, peeped into microscopes, and became
familiar with the fashionable experiments of the day; some took
to reading, and I was one of them.
Some grains of repulsion towards the society around me--some
painful recollections of early faults and follies--some touch of
displeasure with living mankind--inclined me rather to a study of
antiquities, and particularly those of my own country. The
reader, if I can prevail on myself to continue the present work,
will probably be able to judge in the course of it whether I have
made any useful progress in the study of the olden times.
I owed this turn of study, in part, to the conversation of my
kind man of business, Mr. Fairscribe, whom I mentioned as having
seconded the efforts of my invaluable friend in bringing the
cause on which my liberty and the remnant of my property depended
to a favourable decision. He had given me a most kind reception
on my return. He was too much engaged in his profession for me
to intrude on him often, and perhaps his mind was too much
trammelled with its details to permit his being willingly
withdrawn from them. In short, he was not a person of my poor
friend Sommerville's expanded spirit, and rather a lawyer of the
ordinary class of formalists; but a most able and excellent man.
When my estate was sold! he retained some of the older title-
deeds, arguing, from his own feelings, that they would be of more
consequence to the heir of the old family than to the new
purchaser. And when I returned to Edinburgh, and found him still
in the exercise of the profession to which he was an honour, he
sent to my lodgings the old family Bible, which lay always on my
father's table, two or three other mouldy volumes, and a couple
of sheepskin bags full of parchments and papers, whose appearance
was by no means inviting.
The next time I shared Mr. Fairscribe's hospitable dinner, I
failed not to return him due thanks for his kindness, which
acknowledgment, indeed, I proportioned rather to the idea which I
knew he entertained of the value of such things, than to the
interest with which I myself regarded them. But the conversation
turning on my family, who were old proprietors in the Upper Ward
of Clydesdale, gradually excited some interest in my mind and
when I retired to my solitary parlour, the first thing I did was
to look for a pedigree or sort of history of the family or House
of Croftangry, once of that Ilk, latterly of Glentanner. The
discoveries which I made shall enrich the next chapter.
CHAPTER II.
IN WHICH MR. CROFTANGRY CONTINUES HIS STORY.
"What's property, dear Swift? I see it alter
From you to me, from me to Peter Walter."
"Croftangry--Croftandrew--Croftanridge--Croftandgrey for sa mony
wise hath the name been spellit--is weel known to be ane house of
grit antiquity; and it is said that King Milcolumb, or Malcolm,
being the first of our Scottish princes quha removit across the
Firth of Forth, did reside and occupy ane palace at Edinburgh,
and had there ane valziant man, who did him man-service by
keeping the croft, or corn-land, which was tilled for the
convenience of the King's household, and was thence callit Croft-
an-ri, that is to say, the King his croft; quhilk place, though
now coverit with biggings, is to this day called Croftangry, and
lyeth near to the royal palace. And whereas that some of those
who bear this auld and honourable name may take scorn that it
ariseth from the tilling of the ground, quhilk men account a
slavish occupation, yet we ought to honour the pleugh and spade,
seeing we all derive our being from our father Adam, whose lot it
became to cultivate the earth, in respect of his fall and
transgression.
"Also we have witness, as weel in holy writt as in profane
history, of the honour in quhilk husbandrie was held of old, and
how prophets have been taken from the pleugh, and great captains
raised up to defend their ain countries, sic as Cincinnatus, and
the like, who fought not the common enemy with the less valiancy
that their alms had been exercised in halding the stilts of the
pleugh, and their bellicose skill in driving of yauds and owsen.
"Likewise there are sindry honorable families, quhilk are now of
our native Scottish nobility, and have clombe higher up the brae
of preferment than what this house of Croftangry hath done,
quhilk shame not to carry in their warlike shield and insignia of
dignity the tools and implements the quhilk their first
forefathers exercised in labouring the croft-rig, or, as the poet
Virgilius calleth it eloquently, in subduing the soil, and no
doubt this ancient house of Croftangry, while it continued to be
called of that Ilk, produced many worshipful and famous patriots,
of quhom I now praetermit the names; it being my purpose, if God
shall spare me life for sic ane pious officium, or duty, to
resume the first part of my narrative touching the house of
Croftangry, when I can set down at length the evidents and
historical witness anent the facts which I shall allege, seeing
that words, when they are unsupported by proofs, are like seed
sown on the naked rocks, or like an house biggit on the flitting
and faithless sands."
Here I stopped to draw breath; for the style of my grandsire, the
inditer of this goodly matter, was rather lengthy, as our
American friends say. Indeed, I reserve the rest of the piece
until I can obtain admission to the Bannatine Club, [This Club,
of which the Author of Waverley has the honour to be President,
was instituted in February 1823, for the purpose of printing and
publishing works illustrative of the history, literature, and
antiquities of Scotland. It continues to prosper, and has
already rescued from oblivion many curious materials of Scottish
history.] when I propose to throw off an edition, limited
according to the rules of that erudite Society, with a facsimile
of the manuscript, emblazonry of the family arms surrounded by
their quartering, and a handsome disclamation of family pride,
with HAEC NOS NOVIMUS ESSE NIHIL, or VIX EA NOSTRA VOCO.
In the meantime, to speak truth, I cannot but suspect that,
though my worthy ancestor puffed vigorously to swell up the
dignity of his family, we had never, in fact, risen above the
rank of middling proprietors. The estate of Glentanner came to
us by the intermarriage of my ancestor with Tib Sommeril, termed
by the southrons Sommerville, a daughter of that noble house,
but, I fear, on what my great-grandsire calls "the wrong side of
the blanket." [The ancient Norman family of the Sommervilles
came into this island with William the Conqueror, and established
one branch in Gloucestershire, another in Scotland. After the
lapse of seven hundred years, the remaining possessions of these
two branches were united in the person of the late Lord
Sommerville, on the death of his English kinsman, the well-known
author of "The Chase."] Her husband, Gilbert, was killed
fighting, as the INQUISITIO POST MORTEM has it, "SUB VEXILLO
REGIS, APUD PRAELIUM JUXTA BRANXTON, LIE FLODDDEN-FIELD."
We had our share in other national misfortunes--were forfeited,
like Sir John Colville of the Dale, for following our betters to
the field of Langside; and in the contentious times of the last
Stewarts we were severely fined for harbouring and resetting
intercommuned ministers, and narrowly escaped giving a martyr to
the Calendar of the Covenant, in the person of the father of our
family historian. He "took the sheaf from the mare," however, as
the MS. expresses it, and agreed to accept of the terms of pardon
offered by Government, and sign the bond in evidence he would
give no further ground of offence. My grandsire glosses over his
father's backsliding as smoothly as he can, and comforts himself
with ascribing his want of resolution to his unwillingness to
wreck the ancient name and family, and to permit his lands and
lineage to fall under a doom of forfeiture.
"And indeed," said the venerable compiler, "as, praised be God,
we seldom meet in Scotland with these belly-gods and
voluptuaries, whilk are unnatural enough to devour their
patrimony bequeathed to them by their forbears in chambering and
wantonness, so that they come, with the prodigal son, to the
husks and the swine-trough; and as I have the less to dreid the
existence of such unnatural Neroes in mine own family to devour
the substance of their own house like brute beasts out of mere
gluttonie and Epicurishnesse, so I need only warn mine
descendants against over-hastily meddling with the mutations in
state and in religion, which have been near-hand to the bringing
this poor house of Croftangry to perdition, as we have shown more
than once. And albeit I would not that my successors sat still
altogether when called on by their duty to Kirk and King, yet I
would have them wait till stronger and walthier men than
themselves were up, so that either they may have the better
chance of getting through the day, or, failing of that, the
conquering party having some fatter quarry to live upon, may,
like gorged hawks, spare the smaller game."
There was something in this conclusion which at first reading
piqued me extremely, and I was so unnatural as to curse the whole
concern, as poor, bald, pitiful trash, in which a silly old man
was saying a great deal about nothing at all. Nay, my first
impression was to thrust it into the fire, the rather that it
reminded me, in no very flattering manner, of the loss of the
family property, to which the compiler of the history was so much
attached, in the very manner which he most severely reprobated.
It even seemed to my aggrieved feelings that his unprescient gaze
on futurity, in which he could not anticipate the folly of one of
his descendants, who should throw away the whole inheritance in a
few years of idle expense and folly, was meant as a personal
incivility to myself, though written fifty or sixty years before
I was born.
A little reflection made me ashamed or this feeling of
impatience, and as I looked at the even, concise, yet tremulous
hand in which the manuscript was written, I could not help
thinking, according to an opinion I have heard seriously
maintained, that something of a man's character may be
conjectured from his handwriting. That neat but crowded and
constrained small-hand argued a man of a good conscience, well-
regulated passions, and, to use his own phrase, an upright walk
in life; but it also indicated narrowness of spirit, inveterate
prejudice, and hinted at some degree of intolerance, which,
though not natural to the disposition, had arisen out of a
limited education. The passages from Scripture and the classics,
rather profusely than happily introduced, and written in a half-
text character to mark their importance, illustrated that
peculiar sort of pedantry which always considers the argument as
gained if secured by a quotation. Then the flourished capital
letters, which ornamented the commencement of each paragraph, and
the names of his family and of his ancestors whenever these
occurred in the page, do they not express forcibly the pride and
sense of importance with which the author undertook and
accomplished his task? I persuaded myself the whole was so
complete a portrait of the man, that it would not have been a
more undutiful act to have defaced his picture, or even to have
disturbed his bones in his coffin, than to destroy his
manuscript. I thought, for a moment, of presenting it to Mr.
Fairscribe; but that confounded passage about the prodigal and
swine-trough--I settled at last it was as well to lock it up in
my own bureau, with the intention to look at it no more.
But I do not know how it was, that the subject began to sit
nearer my heart than I was aware of, and I found myself
repeatedly engaged in reading descriptions of farms which were no
longer mine, and boundaries which marked the property of others.
A love of the NATALE SOLUM, if Swift be right in translating
these words, "family estate," began to awaken in my bosom--the
recollections of my own youth adding little to it, save what was
connected with field-sports. A career of pleasure is
unfavourable for acquiring a taste for natural beauty, and still
more so for forming associations of a sentimental kind,
connecting us with the inanimate objects around us.
I had thought little about my estate while I possessed and was
wasting it, unless as affording the rude materials out of which a
certain inferior race of creatures, called tenants, were bound to
produce (in a greater quantity than they actually did) a certain
return called rent, which was destined to supply my expenses.
This was my general view of the matter. Of particular places, I
recollected that Garval Hill was a famous piece of rough upland
pasture for rearing young colts, and teaching them to throw their
feet; that Minion Burn had the finest yellow trout in the
country; that Seggy-cleugh was unequalled for woodcocks; that
Bengibbert Moors afforded excellent moorfowl-shooting; and that
the clear, bubbling fountain called the Harper's Well was the
best recipe in the world on the morning after a HARD-GO with my
neighbour fox-hunters. Still, these ideas recalled, by degrees,
pictures of which I had since learned to appreciate the merit--
scenes of silent loneliness, where extensive moors, undulating
into wild hills, were only disturbed by the whistle of the plover
or the crow of the heathcock; wild ravines creeping up into
mountains, filled with natural wood, and which, when traced
downwards along the path formed by shepherds and nutters, were
found gradually to enlarge and deepen, as each formed a channel
to its own brook, sometimes bordered by steep banks of earth,
often with the more romantic boundary of naked rocks or cliffs
crested with oak, mountain ash, and hazel--all gratifying the eye
the more that the scenery was, from the bare nature of the
country around, totally unexpected.
I had recollections, too, of fair and fertile holms, or level
plains, extending between the wooded banks and the bold stream of
the Clyde, which, coloured like pure amber, or rather having the
hue of the pebbles called Cairngorm, rushes over sheets of rock
and beds of gravel, inspiring a species of awe from the few and
faithless fords which it presents, and the frequency of fatal
accidents, now diminished by the number of bridges. These
alluvial holms were frequently bordered by triple and quadruple
rows of large trees, which gracefully marked their boundary, and
dipped their long arms into the foaming stream of the river.
Other places I remembered, which had been described by the old
huntsman as the lodge of tremendous wild-cats, or the spot where
tradition stated the mighty stag to have been brought to bay, or
where heroes, whose might was now as much forgotten, were said to
have been slain by surprise, or in battle.
It is not to be supposed that these finished landscapes became
visible before the eyes of my imagination, as the scenery of the
stage is disclosed by the rising of the curtain. I have said
that I had looked upon the country around me, during the hurried
and dissipated period of my life, with the eyes, indeed, of my
body, but without those of my understanding. It was piece by
piece, as a child picks out its lesson, that I began to recollect
the beauties of nature which had once surrounded me in the home
of my forefathers. A natural taste for them must have lurked at
the bottom of my heart, which awakened when I was in foreign
countries, and becoming by degrees a favourite passion, gradually
turned its eyes inwards, and ransacked the neglected stores which
my memory had involuntarily recorded, and, when excited, exerted
herself to collect and to complete.
I began now to regret more bitterly than ever the having fooled
away my family property, the care and improvement of which I saw
might have afforded an agreeable employment for my leisure, which
only went to brood on past misfortunes, and increase useless
repining. "Had but a single farm been reserved, however small,"
said I one day to Mr. Fairscribe, "I should have had a place I
could call my home, and something that I could call business."
"It might have been managed," answered Fairscribe; "and for my
part, I inclined to keep the mansion house, mains, and some of
the old family acres together; but both Mr. -- and you were of
opinion that the money would be more useful."
"True, true, my good friend," said I; "I was a fool then, and did
not think I could incline to be Glentanner with L200 or L300 a
year, instead of Glentanner with as many thousands. I was then a
haughty, pettish, ignorant, dissipated, broken-down Scottish
laird; and thinking my imaginary consequence altogether ruined, I
cared not how soon, or how absolutely, I was rid of everything
that recalled it to my own memory, or that of others."
"And now it is like you have changed your mind?" said
Fairscribe. "Well, fortune is apt to circumduce the term upon us;
but I think she may allow you to revise your condescendence."
"How do you mean, my good friend?"
"Nay," said Fairscribe, "there is ill luck in averring till one
is sure of his facts. I will look back on a file of newspapers,
and to-morrow you shall hear from me. Come, help yourself--I
have seen you fill your glass higher."
"And shall see it again," said I, pouring out what remained of
our bottle of claret; "the wine is capital, and so shall our
toast be--"To your fireside, my good friend. And now we shall go
beg a Scots song without foreign graces from my little siren,
Miss Katie."
The next day, accordingly, I received a parcel from Mr.
Fairscribe with a newspaper enclosed, among the advertisements of
which one was marked with a cross as requiring my attention. I
read, to my surprise:--
"DESIRABLE ESTATE FOR SALE.
"By order of the Lords of Council and Session, will be exposed to
sale in the New Sessions House of Edinburgh, on Wednesday, the
25th November, 18--, all and whole the lands and barony of
Glentanner, now called Castle Treddles, lying in the Middle Ward
of Clydesdale, and shire of Lanark, with the teinds, parsonage
and vicarage, fishings in the Clyde, woods, mosses, moors, and
pasturages," etc., etc.
The advertisement went on to set forth the advantages of the
soil, situation, natural beauties, and capabilities of
improvement, not forgetting its being a freehold estate, with the
particular polypus capacity of being sliced up into two, three,
or, with a little assistance, four freehold qualifications, and a
hint that the county was likely to be eagerly contested between
two great families. The upset price at which "the said lands and
barony and others" were to be exposed was thirty years' purchase
of the proven rental, which was about a fourth more than the
property had fetched at the last sale. This, which was
mentioned, I suppose, to show the improvable character of the
land, would have given another some pain. But let me speak truth
of myself in good as in evil--it pained not me. I was only angry
that Fairscribe, who knew something generally of the extent of my
funds, should have tantalized me by sending me information that
my family property was in the market, since he must have known
that the price was far out of my reach.
But a letter dropped from the parcel on the floor, which
attracted my eye, and explained the riddle. A client of Mr.
Fairscribe's, a moneyed man, thought of buying Glentanner, merely
as an investment of money--it was even unlikely he would ever see
it; and so the price of the whole being some thousand pounds
beyond what cash he had on hand, this accommodating Dives would
gladly take a partner in the sale for any detached farm, and
would make no objection to its including the most desirable part
of the estate in point of beauty, provided the price was made
adequate. Mr. Fairscribe would take care I was not imposed on in
the matter, and said in his card he believed, if I really wished
to make such a purchase, I had better go out and look at the
premises, advising me, at the same time, to keep a strict
incognito--an advice somewhat superfluous, since I am naturally
of a retired and reserved disposition.
CHAPTER III.
MR. CROFTANGRY, INTER ALIA, REVISITS GLENTANNER.
Then sing of stage-coaches,
And fear no reproaches
For riding in one;
But daily be jogging,
Whilst, whistling and flogging,
Whilst, whistling and flogging,
The coachman drives on. FARQUHAR.
Disguised in a grey surtout which had seen service, a white
castor on my head, and a stout Indian cane in my hand, the next
week saw me on the top of a mail-coach driving to the westward.
I like mail-coaches, and I hate them. I like them for my
convenience; but I detest them for setting the whole world a-
gadding, instead of sitting quietly still minding their own
business, and preserving the stamp of originality of character
which nature or education may have impressed on them. Off they
go, jingling against each other in the rattling vehicle till they
have no more variety of stamp in them than so many smooth
shillings--the same even in their Welsh wigs and greatcoats, each
without more individuality than belongs to a partner of the
company, as the waiter calls them, of the North Coach.
Worthy Mr. Piper, best of contractors who ever furnished four
frampal jades for public use, I bless you when I set out on a
journey myself; the neat coaches under your contract render the
intercourse, from Johnnie Groat's House to Ladykirk and Cornhill
Bridge, safe, pleasant, and cheap. But, Mr. Piper, you who are a
shrewd arithmetician, did it never occur to you to calculate how
many fools' heads, which might have produced an idea or two in
the year, if suffered to remain in quiet, get effectually addled
by jolting to and fro in these flying chariots of yours; how many
decent countrymen become conceited bumpkins after a cattle-show
dinner in the capital, which they could not have attended save
for your means; how many decent country parsons return critics
and spouters, by way of importing the newest taste from
Edinburgh? And how will your conscience answer one day for
carrying so many bonny lasses to barter modesty for conceit and
levity at the metropolitan Vanity Fair?
Consider, too, the low rate to which you reduce human intellect.
I do not believe your habitual customers have their ideas more
enlarged than one of your coach-horses. They KNOWS the road,
like the English postilion, and they know nothing besides. They
date, like the carriers at Gadshill, from the death of Robin
Ostler; [See Act II. Scene 1 of the First Part of Shakespeare's
Henry IV.] the succession of guards forms a dynasty in their
eyes; coachmen are their ministers of state; and an upset is to
them a greater incident than a change of administration. Their
only point of interest on the road is to save the time, and see
whether the coach keeps the hour. This is surely a miserable
degradation of human intellect. Take my advice, my good sir, and
disinterestedly contrive that once or twice a quarter your most
dexterous whip shall overturn a coachful of these superfluous
travellers, IN TERROREM to those who, as Horace says, "delight in
the dust raised by your chariots."
Your current and customary mail-coach passenger, too, gets
abominably selfish, schemes successfully for the best seat, the
freshest egg, the right cut of the sirloin. The mode of
travelling is death to all the courtesies and kindnesses of life,
and goes a great way to demoralize the character, and cause it to
retrograde to barbarism. You allow us excellent dinners, but
only twenty minutes to eat them. And what is the consequence?
Bashful beauty sits on the one side of us, timid childhood on the
other; respectable, yet somewhat feeble, old age is placed on our
front; and all require those acts of politeness which ought to
put every degree upon a level at the convivial board. But have
we time--we the strong and active of the party--to perform the
duties of the table to the more retired and bashful, to whom
these little attentions are due? The lady should be pressed to
her chicken, the old man helped to his favourite and tender
slice, the child to his tart. But not a fraction of a minute
have we to bestow on any other person than ourselves; and the
PRUT-PRUT--TUT-TUT of the guard's discordant note summons us to
the coach, the weaker party having gone without their dinner, and
the able-bodied and active threatened with indigestion, from
having swallowed victuals like a Lei'stershire clown bolting
bacon.
On the memorable occasion I am speaking of I lost my breakfast,
sheerly from obeying the commands of a respectable-looking old
lady, who once required me to ring the bell, and another time to
help the tea-kettle. I have some reason to think she was
literally an OLD-STAGER, who laughed in her sleeve at my
complaisance; so that I have sworn in my secret soul revenge upon
her sex, and all such errant damsels of whatever age and degree
whom I may encounter in my travels. I mean all this without the
least ill-will to my friend the contractor, who, I think, has
approached as near as any one is like to do towards accomplishing
the modest wish cf the Amatus and Amata of the Peri Bathous,--
"Ye gods, annihilate but time and space,
And make two lovers happy."
I intend to give Mr. P. his full revenge when I come to discuss
the more recent enormity of steamboats; meanwhile, I shall only
say of both these modes of conveyance, that--
"There is no living with them or without them."
I am, perhaps, more critical on the--mail-coach on this
particular occasion, that I did not meet all the respect from the
worshipful company in his Majesty's carriage that I think I was
entitled to. I must say it for myself that I bear, in my own
opinion at least, not a vulgar point about me. My face has seen
service, but there is still a good set of teeth, an aquiline
nose, and a quick, grey eye, set a little too deep under the
eyebrow; and a cue of the kind once called military may serve to
show that my civil occupations have been sometimes mixed with
those of war. Nevertheless, two idle young fellows in the
vehicle, or rather on the top of it, were so much amused with the
deliberation which I used in ascending to the same place of
eminence, that I thought I should have been obliged to pull them
up a little. And I was in no good-humour at an unsuppressed
laugh following my descent when set down at the angle, where a
cross road, striking off from the main one, led me towards
Glentanner, from which I was still nearly five miles distant.
It was an old-fashioned road, which, preferring ascents to
sloughs, was led in a straight line over height and hollow,
through moor and dale. Every object around me; as I passed them
in succession, reminded me of old days, and at the same time
formed the strongest contrast with them possible. Unattended, on
foot, with a small bundle in my hand, deemed scarce sufficient
good company for the two shabby-genteels with whom I had been
lately perched on the top of a mail-coach, I did not seem to be
the same person with the young prodigal, who lived with the
noblest and gayest in the land, and who, thirty years before,
would, in the same country, have, been on the back of a horse
that had been victor for a plate, or smoking aloof in his
travelling chaise-and-four. My sentiments were not less changed
than my condition. I could quite well remember that my ruling
sensation in the days of heady youth was a mere schoolboy's
eagerness to get farthest forward in the race in which I had
engaged; to drink as many bottles as --; to be thought as good a
judge of a horse as --; to have the knowing cut of --'s jacket.
These were thy gods, O Israel!
Now I was a mere looker-on; seldom an unmoved, and sometimes an
angry spectator, but still a spectator only, of the pursuits of
mankind. I felt how little my opinion was valued by those
engaged in the busy turmoil, yet I exercised it with the
profusion of an old lawyer retired from his profession, who
thrusts himself into his neighbour's affairs, and gives advice
where it is not wanted, merely under pretence of loving the crack
of the whip.
I came amid these reflections to the brow of a hill, from which I
expected to see Glentanner, a modest-looking yet comfortable
house, its walls covered with the most productive fruit-trees in
that part of the country, and screened from the most stormy
quarters of the horizon by a deep and ancient wood, which
overhung the neighbouring hill. The house was gone; a great part
of the wood was felled; and instead of the gentlemanlike mansion,
shrouded and embosomed among its old hereditary trees, stood
Castle Treddles, a huge lumping four-square pile of freestone, as
bare as my nail, except for a paltry edging of decayed and
lingering exotics, with an impoverished lawn stretched before it,
which, instead of boasting deep green tapestry, enamelled with
daisies and with crowsfoot and cowslips, showed an extent of
nakedness, raked, indeed, and levelled, but where the sown
grasses had failed with drought, and the earth, retaining its
natural complexion, seemed nearly as brown and bare as when it
was newly dug up.
The house was a large fabric, which pretended to its name of
Castle only from the front windows being finished in acute Gothic
arches (being, by the way, the very reverse of the castellated
style), and each angle graced with a turret about the size of a
pepper-box. In every other respect it resembled a large town-
house, which, like a fat burgess, had taken a walk to the country
on a holiday, and climbed to the top of all eminence to look
around it. The bright red colour of the freestone, the size of
the building, the formality of its shape, and awkwardness of its
position, harmonized as ill with the sweeping Clyde in front, and
the bubbling brook which danced down on the right, as the fat
civic form, with bushy wig, gold-headed cane, maroon-coloured
coat, and mottled silk stockings, would have accorded with the
wild and magnificent scenery of Corehouse Linn.
I went up to the house. It was in that state of desertion which
is perhaps the most unpleasant to look on, for the place was
going to decay without having been inhabited. There were about
the mansion, though deserted, none of the slow mouldering touches
of time, which communicate to buildings, as to the human frame, a
sort of reverence, while depriving them of beauty and of
strength. The disconcerted schemes of the Laird of Castle
Treddles had resembled fruit that becomes decayed without ever
having ripened. Some windows broken, others patched, others
blocked up with deals, gave a disconsolate air to all around, and
seemed to say, "There Vanity had purposed to fix her seat, but
was anticipated by Poverty."
To the inside, after many a vain summons, I was at length
admitted by an old labourer. The house contained every
contrivance for luxury and accommodation. The kitchens were a
model; and there were hot closets on the office staircase, that
the dishes might not cool, as our Scottish phrase goes, between
the kitchen and the hall. But instead of the genial smell of
good cheer, these temples of Comus emitted the damp odour of
sepulchral vaults, and the large cabinets of cast-iron looked
like the cages of some feudal Bastille. The eating room and
drawing-room, with an interior boudoir, were magnificent
apartments, the ceiling was fretted and adorned with stucco-work,
which already was broken in many places, and looked in others
damp and mouldering; the wood panelling was shrunk and warped,
and cracked; the doors, which had not been hung for more than two
years, were, nevertheless, already swinging loose from their
hinges. Desolation, in short, was where enjoyment had never
been; and the want of all the usual means to preserve was fast
performing the work of decay.
The story was a common one, and told in a few words. Mr.
Treddles, senior, who bought the estate, was a cautious, money-
making person. His son, still embarked in commercial
speculations, desired at the same time to enjoy his opulence and
to increase it. He incurred great expenses, amongst which this
edifice was to benumbered. To support these he speculated
boldly, and unfortunately; and thus the whole history is told,
which may serve for more places than Glentanner.
Strange and various feelings ran through my bosom as I loitered
in these deserted apartments, scarce hearing what my guide said
to me about the size and destination of each room. The first
sentiment, I am ashamed to say, was one of gratified spite. My
patrician pride was pleased that the mechanic, who had not
thought the house of the Croftangrys sufficiently good for him,
had now experienced a fall in his turn. My next thought was as
mean, though not so malicious. "I have had the better of this
fellow," thought I. "If I lost the estate, I at least spent the
price; and Mr. Treddles has lost his among paltry commercial
engagements."
"Wretch!" said the secret voice within, "darest thou exult in
thy shame? Recollect how thy youth and fortune was wasted in
those years, and triumph not in the enjoyment of an existence
which levelled thee with the beasts that perish. Bethink thee
how this poor man's vanity gave at least bread to the labourer,
peasant, and citizen; and his profuse expenditure, like water
spilt on the ground, refreshed the lowly herbs and plants where
it fell. But thou! Whom hast thou enriched during thy career of
extravagance, save those brokers of the devil--vintners, panders,
gamblers, and horse-jockeys?" The anguish produced by this self-
reproof was so strong that I put my hand suddenly to my forehead,
and was obliged to allege a sudden megrim to my attendant, in
apology for the action, and a slight groan with which it was
accompanied.
I then made an effort to turn my thoughts into a more
philosophical current, and muttered half aloud, as a charm to
lull any more painful thoughts to rest,--
"NUNC AGER UMBRENI SUB NOMINE, NUPER OFELLI
DICTUS ERIT NULLI PROPRIUS; SED CEDIT IN USUM
NUNC MIHI, NUNC ALII. QUOCIRCA VIVITE FORTES,
FORTIAQUE ADVERSIS OPPONITE PECTORA REBUS."
[Horace Sat.II Lib.2. The meaning will be best conveyed to the
English reader in Pope's imitation:--
"What's property, dear Swift? You see it alter
From you to me, from me to Peter Walter;
Or in a mortgage prove a lawyer's share;
Or in a jointure vanish from the heir.
* * * * * * *
"Shades, that to Bacon could retreat afford,
Become the portion of a booby lord;
And Helmsley, once proud Buckingham's delight,
Slides to a scrivener and city knight.
Let lands and houses have what lords they will,
Let us be fix'd, and our own masters still."]
In my anxiety to fix the philosophical precept in my mind, I
recited the last line aloud, which, joined to my previous
agitation, I afterwards found became the cause of a report that a
mad schoolmaster had come from Edinburgh, with the idea in his
head of buying Castle Treddles.
As I saw my companion was desirous of getting rid of me, I asked
where I was to find the person in whose hands were left the map
of the estate, and other particulars connected with the sale.
The agent who had this in possession, I was told, lived at the
town of --, which I was informed, and indeed knew well, was
distant five miles and a bittock, which may pass in a country
where they are less lavish of their land for two or three more.
Being somewhat afraid of the fatigue of walking so far, I
inquired if a horse or any sort of carriage was to be had, and
was answered in the negative.
"But," said my cicerone, "you may halt a blink till next morning
at the Treddles Arms, a very decent house, scarce a mile off."
"A new house, I suppose?" replied I.
"No, it's a new public, but it's an auld house; it was aye the
Leddy's jointure-house in the Croftangry folk's time. But Mr.
Treddles has fitted it up for the convenience of the country,
poor man, he was a public-spirited man when he had the means."
"Duntarkin a public-house!" I exclaimed.
"Ay!" said the fellow, surprised at my naming the place by its
former title; "ye'll hae been in this country before, I'm
thinking?"
"Long since," I replied. "And there is good accommodation at the
what-d'ye-call-'em arms, and a civil landlord?" This I said by
way of saying something, for the man stared very hard at me.
"Very decent accommodation. Ye'll no be for fashing wi' wine,
I'm thinking; and there's walth o' porter, ale, and a drap gude
whisky" (in an undertone)--"Fairntosh--if you call get on the
lee-side of the gudewife--for there is nae gudeman. They ca' her
Christie Steele."
I almost started at the sound. Christie Steele! Christie Steele
was my mother's body-servant, her very right hand, and, between
ourselves, something like a viceroy over her. I recollected her
perfectly; and though she had in former times been no favourite
of mine, her name now sounded in my ear like that of a friend,
and was the first word I had heard somewhat in unison with the
associations around me. I sallied from Castle Treddles,
determined to make the best of my way to Duntarkin, and my
cicerone hung by me for a little way, giving loose to his love of
talking--an opportunity which, situated as he was, the seneschal
of a deserted castle, was not likely to occur frequently.
"Some folk think," said my companion, "that Mr. Treddles might as
weel have put my wife as Christie Steele into the Treddles Arms;
for Christie had been aye in service, and never in the public
line, and so it's like she is ganging back in the world, as I
hear. Now, my wife had keepit a victualling office."
"That would have been an advantage, certainly," I replied.
"But I am no sure that I wad ha' looten Eppie take it, if they
had put it in her offer."
"That's a different consideration."
"Ony way, I wadna ha' liked to have offended Mr. Treddles. He
was a wee toustie when you rubbed him again the hair; but a kind,
weel-meaning man."
I wanted to get rid of this species of chat, and finding myself
near the entrance of a footpath which made a short cut to
Duntarkin, I put half a crown into my guide's hand, bade him
good-evening, and plunged into the woods.
"Hout, sir--fie, sir--no from the like of you. Stay, sir, ye
wunna find the way that gate.--Odd's mercy, he maun ken the gate
as weel as I do mysel'. Weel, I wad Iike to ken wha the chield
is."
Such were the last words of my guide's drowsy, uninteresting tone
of voice and glad to be rid of him, I strode out stoutly, in
despite of large stones, briers, and BAD STEPS, which abounded in
the road I had chosen. In the interim, I tried as much as I
could, with verses from Horace and Prior, and all who have lauded
the mixture of literary with rural life, to call back the visions
of last night and this morning, imagining myself settled in same
detached farm of the estate of Glentanner,--
"Which sloping hills around enclose--
Where many a birch and brown oak grows,"
when I should have a cottage with a small library, a small
cellar, a spare bed for a friend, and live more happy and more
honoured than when I had the whole barony. But the sight of
Castle Treddles had disturbed all my own castles in the air. The
realities of the matter, like a stone plashed into a limpid
fountain, had destroyed the reflection of the objects around,
which, till this act of violence, lay slumbering on the crystal
surface, and I tried in vain to re-establish the picture which
had been so rudely broken. Well, then, I would try it another
way. I would try to get Christie Steele out of her PUBLIC, since
she was not striving in it, and she who had been my mother's
governante should be mine. I knew all her faults, and I told her
history over to myself.
She was grand-daughter, I believe--at least some relative--of the
famous Covenanter of the name, whom Dean Swift's friend, Captain
Creichton, shot on his own staircase in the times of the
persecutions; [See Note 2.--Steele a Covenanter, shot by Captain
Creichton.] and had perhaps derived from her native stock much
both of its good and evil properties. No one could say of her
that she was the life and spirit of the family, though in my
mother's time she directed all family affairs. Her look was
austere and gloomy, and when she was not displeased with you, you
could only find it out by her silence. If there was cause for
complaint, real or imaginary, Christie was loud enough. She
loved my mother with the devoted attachment of a younger sister;
but she was as jealous of her favour to any one else as if she
had been the aged husband of a coquettish wife, and as severe in
her reprehensions as an abbess over her nuns. The command which
she exercised over her was that, I fear, of a strong and
determined over a feeble and more nervous disposition and though
it was used with rigour, yet, to the best of Christie Steele's
belief, she was urging her mistress to her best and most becoming
course, and would have died rather than have recommended any
other. The attachment of this woman was limited to the family of
Croftangry; for she had few relations, and a dissolute cousin,
whom late in life she had taken as a husband, had long left her a
widow.
To me she had ever a strong dislike. Even from my early
childhood she was jealous, strange as it may seem, of my interest
in my mother's affections. She saw my foibles and vices with
abhorrence, and without a grain of allowance; nor did she pardon
the weakness of maternal affection even when, by the death of two
brothers, I came to be the only child of a widowed parent. At
the time my disorderly conduct induced my mother to leave
Glentanner, and retreat to her jointure-house, I always blamed
Christie Steele for having influenced her resentment and
prevented her from listening to my vows of amendment, which at
times were real and serious, and might, perhaps, have accelerated
that change of disposition which has since, I trust, taken place.
But Christie regarded me as altogether a doomed and predestinated
child of perdition, who was sure to hold on my course, and drag
downwards whosoever might attempt to afford me support.
Still, though I knew such had been Christie's prejudices against
me in other days, yet I thought enough of time had since passed
away to destroy all of them. I knew that when, through the
disorder of my affairs, my mother underwent some temporary
inconvenience about money matters, Christie, as a thing of
course, stood in the gap, and having sold a small inheritance
which had descended to her, brought the purchase money to her
mistress, with a sense of devotion as deep as that which inspired
the Christians of the first age, when they sold all they had, and
followed the apostles of the church. I therefore thought that we
might, in old Scottish phrase, "let byganes be byganes," and
begin upon a new account. Yet I resolved, like a skilful
general, to reconnoitre a little before laying down any precise
scheme of proceeding, and in the interim I determined to preserve
my incognito.
CHAPTER IV.
MR. CROFTANGRY BIDS ADIEU TO CLYDESDALE.
Alas, how changed from what it once had been!
'Twas now degraded to a common inn. GAY.
An hour's brisk walking, or thereabouts, placed me in front of
Duntarkin, which had also, I found, undergone considerable
alterations, though it had not been altogether demolished like
the principal mansion. An inn-yard extended before the door of
the decent little jointure-house, even amidst the remnants of the
holly hedges which had screened the lady's garden. Then a broad,
raw-looking, new-made road intruded itself up the little glen,
instead of the old horseway, so seldom used that it was almost
entirely covered with grass. It is a great enormity, of which
gentlemen trustees on the highways are sometimes guilty, in
adopting the breadth necessary for an avenue to the metropolis,
where all that is required is an access to some sequestered and
unpopulous district. I do not say anything of the expense--that
the trustees and their constituents may settle as they please.
But the destruction of silvan beauty is great when the breadth of
the road is more than proportioned to the vale through which it
runs, and lowers, of course, the consequence of any objects of
wood or water, or broken and varied ground, which might otherwise
attract notice and give pleasure. A bubbling runnel by the side
of one of those modern Appian or Flaminian highways is but like a
kennel; the little hill is diminished to a hillock--the romantic
hillock to a molehill, almost too small for sight.
Such an enormity, however, had destroyed the quiet loneliness of
Duntarkin, and intruded its breadth of dust and gravel, and its
associations of pochays and mail-coaches, upon one of the most
sequestered spots in the Middle Ward of Clydesdale. The house
was old and dilapidated, and looked sorry for itself, as if
sensible of a derogation; but the sign was strong and new, and
brightly painted, displaying a heraldic shield (three shuttles in
a field diapre), a web partly unfolded for crest, and two stout
giants for supporters, each one holding a weaver's beam proper.
To have displayed this monstrous emblem on the front of the house
might have hazarded bringing down the wall, but for certain would
have blocked up one or two windows. It was therefore established
independent of the mansion, being displayed in an iron framework,
and suspended upon two posts, with as much wood and iron about it
as would have builded a brig; and there it hung, creaking,
groaning, and screaming in every blast of wind, and frightening
for five miles' distance, for aught I know, the nests of thrushes
and linnets, the ancient denizens of the little glen.
When I entered the place I was received by Christie Steele
herself, who seemed uncertain whether to drop me in the kitchen,
or usher me into a separate apartment, as I called for tea, with
something rather more substantial than bread and butter, and
spoke of supping and sleeping, Christie at last inducted me into
the room where she herself had been sitting, probably the only
one which had a fire, though the month was October. This
answered my plan; and as she was about to remove her spinning-
wheel, I begged she would have the goodness to remain and make my
tea, adding that I liked the sound of the wheel, and desired not
to disturb her housewife thrift in the least.
"I dinna ken, sir," she replied, in a dry, REVECHE tone, which
carried me back twenty years, "I am nane of thae heartsome
landleddies that can tell country cracks, and make themsel's
agreeable, and I was ganging to put on a fire for you in the Red
Room; but if it is your will to stay here, he that pays the
lawing maun choose the lodging."
I endeavoured to engage her in conversation; but though she
answered, with a kind of stiff civility, I could get her into no
freedom of discourse, and she began to look at her wheel and at
the door more than once, as if she meditated a retreat. I was
obliged, therefore, to proceed to some special questions; that
might have interest for a person whose ideas were probably of a
very bounded description.
I looked round the apartment, being the same in which I had last
seen my poor mother. The author of the family history, formerly
mentioned, had taken great credit to himself for the improvements
he had made in this same jointure-house of Duntarkin, and how,
upon his marriage, when his mother took possession of the same as
her jointure-house, "to his great charges and expenses he caused
box the walls of the great parlour" (in which I was now sitting),
"empanel the same, and plaster the roof, finishing the apartment
with ane concave chimney, and decorating the same with pictures,
and a barometer and thermometer." And in particular, which his
good mother used to say she prized above all the rest, he had
caused his own portraiture be limned over the mantlepiece by a
skilful hand. And, in good faith, there he remained still,
having much the visage which I was disposed to ascribe to him on
the evidence of his handwriting,--grim and austere, yet not
without a cast of shrewdness and determination; in armour, though
he never wore it, I fancy; one hand on an open book, and one
resting on the hilt of his sword, though I dare say his head
never ached with reading, nor his limbs with fencing.
"That picture is painted on the wood, madam," said I.
"Ay, sir, or it's like it would not have been left there; they
look a' they could."
"Mr. Treddles's creditors, you mean?" said I.
"Na," replied she dryly, "the creditors of another family, that
sweepit cleaner than this poor man's, because I fancy there was
less to gather."
"An older family, perhaps, and probably more remembered and
regretted than later possessors?"
Christie here settled herself in her seat, and pulled her wheel
towards her. I had given her something interesting for her
thoughts to dwell upon, and her wheel was a mechanical
accompaniment on such occasions, the revolutions of which
assisted her in the explanation of her ideas.
"Mair regretted--mair missed? I liked ane of the auld family
very weel, but I winna say that for them a'. How should they be
mair missed than the Treddleses? The cotton mill was such a
thing for the country! The mair bairns a cottar body had the
better; they would make their awn keep frae the time they were
five years auld, and a widow wi' three or four bairns was a
wealthy woman in the time of the Treddleses."
"But the health of these poor children, my good friend--their
education and religious instruction--"
"For health," said Christie, looking gloomily at me, "ye maun ken
little of the warld, sir, if ye dinna ken that the health of the
poor man's body, as well as his youth and his strength, are all
at the command of the rich man's purse. There never was a trade
so unhealthy yet but men would fight to get wark at it for twa
pennies a day aboon the common wage. But the bairns were
reasonably weel cared for in the way of air and exercise, and a
very responsible youth heard them their Carritch, and gied them
lessons in Reediemadeasy ["Reading made Easy," usually so
pronounced in Scotland.] Now, what did they ever get before?
Maybe on a winter day they wad be called out to beat the wood for
cocks or siclike; and then the starving weans would maybe get a
bite of broken bread, and maybe no, just as the butler was in
humour--that was a' they got."
"They were not, then, a very kind family to the poor, these old
possessors?" said I, somewhat bitterly; for I had expected to
hear my ancestors' praises recorded, though I certainly despaired
of being regaled with my own.
"They werena ill to them, sir, and that is aye something. They
were just decent bien bodies; ony poor creature that had face to
beg got an awmous, and welcome--they that were shamefaced gaed
by, and twice as welcome. But they keepit an honest walk before
God and man, the Croftangrys, and, as I said before, if they did
little good, they did as little ill. They lifted their rents,
and spent them; called in their kain and ate them; gaed to the
kirk of a Sunday; bowed civilly if folk took aff their bannets as
they gaed by, and lookit as black as sin at them that keepit them
on."
"These are their arms that you have on the sign?"
"What! on the painted board that is skirling and groaning at the
door? Na, these are Mr. Treddles's arms though they look as like
legs as arms. Ill pleased I was at the fule thing, that cost as
muckle as would hae repaired the house from the wa' stane to the
rigging-tree. But if I am to bide here, I'll hae a decent board
wi' a punch bowl on it."
"Is there a doubt of your staying here, Mrs. Steele?"
"Dinna Mistress me," said the cross old woman, whose fingers were
now plying their thrift in a manner which indicated nervous
irritation; "there was nae luck in the land since Luckie turned
Mistress, and Mistress my Leddy. And as for staying here, if it
concerns you to ken, I may stay if I can pay a hundred pund
sterling for the lease, and I may flit if I canna, and so gude
e'en to you, Christie,"--and round went the wheel with much
activity.
"And you like the trade of keeping a public-house?"
"I can scarce say that," she replied. "But worthy Mr.
Prendergast is clear of its lawfulness; and I hae gotten used to
it, and made a decent living, though I never make out a fause
reckoning, or give ony ane the means to disorder reason in my
house."
"Indeed!" said I; "in that case, there is no wonder you have not
made up the hundred pounds to purchase the lease."
"How do you ken," said she sharply, "that I might not have had a
hundred punds of my ain fee? If I have it not, I am sure it is
my ain faut. And I wunna ca' it faut neither, for it gaed to her
wha was weel entitled to a' my service." Again she pulled
stoutly at the flax, and the wheel went smartly round.
"This old gentleman," said I, fixing my eye on the painted panel,
"seems to have had HIS arms painted as well as Mr. Treddles--that
is, if that painting in the corner be a scutcheon."
"Ay, ay--cushion, just sae. They maun a' hae their cushions--
there's sma' gentry without that--and so the arms, as they ca'
them, of the house of Glentanner may be seen on an auld stane in
the west end of the house. But to do them justice; they didna
propale sae muckle about them as poor Mr. Treddles did--it's like
they were better used to them."
"Very likely. Are there any of the old family in life,
goodwife?"
"No," she replied; then added; after a moment's hesitation, "Not
that I know of"--and the wheel, which had intermitted, began
again to revolve.
"Gone abroad, perhaps?" I suggested.
She now looked up, and faced me. "No, sir. There were three
sons of the last laird of Glentanner, as he was then called.
John and William were hopeful young gentlemen, but they died
early--one of a decline brought on by the mizzles, the other lost
his life in a fever. It would hae been lucky for mony ane that
Chrystal had gane the same gate."
"Oh, he must have been the young spendthrift that sold the
property? Well, but you should you have such an ill-will against
him; remember necessity has no law. And then, goodwife, he was
not more culpable than Mr. Treddles, whom you are so sorry for."
"I wish I could think sae, sir, for his mother's sake. But Mr.
Treddles was in trade, and though he had no preceese right to do
so, yet there was some warrant for a man being expensive that
imagined he was making a mint of money. But this unhappy lad
devoured his patrimony, when he kenned that he was living like a
ratten in a Dunlap cheese, and diminishing his means at a' hands.
I canna bide to think on't." With this she broke out into a
snatch of a ballad, but little of mirth was there either in the
tone or the expression:--
"For he did spend, and make an end
Of gear that his forefathers wan;
Of land and ware he made him bare,
So speak nae mair of the auld gudeman."
"Come, dame," said I, "it is a long lane that has no turning. I
will not keep from you that I have heard something of this poor
fellow, Chrystal Croftangry. He has sown his wild oats, as they
say, and has settled into a steady, respectable man."
"And wha tell'd ye that tidings?" said she, looking sharply at
me.
"Not, perhaps, the best judge in the world of his character, for
it was himself, dame."
"And if he tell'd you truth, it was a virtue he did not aye use
to practise," said Christie.
"The devil!" said I, considerably nettled; "all the world held
him to be a man of honour."
"Ay, ay! he would hae shot onybody wi' his pistols and his guns
that had evened him to be a liar. But if he promised to pay an
honest tradesman the next term-day, did he keep his word then?
And if he promised a puir, silly lass to make gude her shame, did
he speak truth then? And what is that but being a liar, and a
black-hearted, deceitful liar to boot?"
My indignation was rising, but I strove to suppress it; indeed, I
should only have afforded my tormentor a triumph by an angry
reply. I partly suspected she began to recognize me, yet she
testified so little emotion that I could not think my suspicion
well founded. I went on, therefore, to say, in a tone as
indifferent as I could command, "Well, goodwife, I see you will
believe no good of this Chrystal of yours, till he comes back and
buys a good farm on the estate, and makes you his housekeeper."
The old woman dropped her thread, folded her hands, as she looked
up to heaven with a face of apprehension. "The Lord," she
exclaimed, "forbid! The Lord in His mercy forbid! O sir! if
you really know this unlucky man, persuade him to settle where
folk ken the good that you say he has come to, and dinna ken the
evil of his former days. He used to be proud enough--O dinna let
him come here, even for his own sake. He used once to have some
pride."
Here she once more drew the wheel close to her, and began to pull
at the flax with both hands. "Dinna let him come here, to be
looked down upon by ony that may be left of his auld reiving
companions, and to see the decent folk that he looked over his
nose at look over their noses at him, baith at kirk and market.
Dinna let him come to his ain country, to be made a tale about
when ony neighbour points him out to another, and tells what he
is, and what he was, and how he wrecked a dainty estate, and
brought harlots to the door-cheek of his father's house, till he
made it nae residence for his mother; and how it had been
foretauld by a servant of his ain house that he was a ne'er-do-
weel and a child of perdition, and how her words were made good,
and--"
"Stop there, goodwife, if you please," said I; "you have said as
much as I can well remember, and more than it may be safe to
repeat. I can use a great deal of freedom with the gentleman we
speak of; but I think, were any other person to carry him half of
your message, I would scarce ensure his personal safety. And
now, as I see the night is settled to be a fine one, I will walk
on to --, where I must meet a coach to-morrow as it passes to
Edinburgh."
So saying, I paid my moderate reckoning, and took my leave,
without being able to discover whether the prejudiced and hard-
hearted old woman did, or did not, suspect the identity of her
guest with the Chrystal Croftangry against whom she harboured so
much dislike.
The night was fine and frosty, though, when I pretended to see
what its character was, it might have rained like the deluge. I
only made the excuse to escape from old Christie Steele. The
horses which run races in the Corso at Rome without any riders,
in order to stimulate their exertion, carry each his own spurs
namely, small balls of steel, with sharp, projecting spikes,
which are attached to loose straps of leather, and, flying about
in the violence of the agitation, keep the horse to his speed by
pricking him as they strike against his flanks. The old woman's
reproaches had the same effect on me, and urged me to a rapid
pace, as if it had been possible to escape from my own
recollections. In the best days of my life, when I won one or
two hard walking matches, I doubt if I ever walked so fast as I
did betwixt the Treddles Arms and the borough town for which I
was bound. Though the night was cold, I was warm enough by the
time I got to my inn; and it required a refreshing draught of
porter, with half an hour's repose, ere I could determine to give
no further thought to Christie and her opinions than those of any
other vulgar, prejudiced old woman. I resolved at last to treat
the thing EN BAGATELLE, and calling for writing materials, I
folded up a cheque for L100, with these lines on the envelope:--
"Chrystal, the ne'er-do-weel,
Child destined to the deil,
Sends this to Christie Steele."
And I was so much pleased with this new mode of viewing the
subject, that I regretted the lateness of the hour prevented my
finding a person to carry the letter express to its destination.
"But with the morning cool reflection came."
I considered that the money, and probably more, was actually due
by me on my mother's account to Christie, who had lent it in a
moment of great necessity, and that the returning it in a light
or ludicrous manner was not unlikely to prevent so touchy and
punctilious a person from accepting a debt which was most justly
her due, and which it became me particularly to see satisfied.
Sacrificing, then, my triad with little regret (for it looked
better by candlelight, and through the medium of a pot of porter,
than it did by daylight, and with bohea for a menstruum), I
determined to employ Mr. Fairscribe's mediation in buying up the
lease of the little inn, and conferring it upon Christie in the
way which should make it most acceptable to her feelings. It is
only necessary to add that my plan succeeded, and that Widow
Steele even yet keeps the Treddles Arms. Do not say, therefore,
that I have been disingenuous with you, reader; since, if I have
not told all the ill of myself I might have done, I have
indicated to you a person able and willing to supply the blank,
by relating all my delinquencies as well as my misfortunes.
In the meantime I totally abandoned the idea of redeeming any
part of my paternal property, and resolved to take Christie
Steele's advice, as young Norval does Glenalvon's, "although it
sounded harshly."
CHAPTER V.
MR. CROFTANGRY SETTLES IN THE CANONGATE.
If you will know my house,
'Tis at the tuft of olives here hard by. AS YOU LIKE IT.
By a revolution of humour which I am unable to account for, I
changed my mind entirely on my plans of life, in consequence of
the disappointment, the history of which fills the last chapter.
I began to discover that the country would not at all suit me;
for I had relinquished field-sports, and felt no inclination
whatever to farming, the ordinary vocation of country gentlemen.
Besides that, I had no talent for assisting either candidate in
case of an expected election, and saw no amusement in the duties
of a road trustee, a commissioner of supply, or even in the
magisterial functions of the bench. I had begun to take some
taste for reading; and a domiciliation in the country must remove
me from the use of books, excepting the small subscription
library, in which the very book which you want is uniformly sure
to be engaged.
I resolved, therefore, to make the Scottish metropolis my regular
resting-place, reserving to myself to take occasionally those
excursions which, spite of all I have said against mail-coaches,
Mr. Piper has rendered so easy. Friend of our life and of our
leisure, he secures by dispatch against loss of time, and by the
best of coaches, cattle, and steadiest of drivers, against hazard
of limb, and wafts us, as well as our letters, from Edinburgh to
Cape Wrath in the penning of a paragraph.
When my mind was quite made up to make Auld Reekie my
headquarters, reserving the privilege of EXPLORING in all
directions, I began to explore in good earnest for the purpose of
discovering a suitable habitation. "And whare trew ye I gaed?"
as Sir Pertinax says. Not to George's Square--nor to Charlotte
Square--nor to the old New Town--nor to the new New Town--nor to
the Calton Hill. I went to the Canongate, and to the very
portion of the Canongate in which I had formerly been immured,
like the errant knight, prisoner in some enchanted castle, where
spells have made the ambient air impervious to the unhappy
captive, although the organs of sight encountered no obstacle to
his free passage.
Why I should have thought of pitching my tent here I cannot tell.
Perhaps it was to enjoy the pleasures of freedom where I had so
long endured the bitterness of restraint, on the principle of the
officer who, after he had retired from the army, ordered his
servant to continue to call him at the hour or parade, simply
that he might have the pleasure of saying, "D--n the parade!"
and turning to the other side to enjoy his slumbers. Or perhaps
I expected to find in the vicinity some little old-fashioned
house, having somewhat of the RUS IN URBE which I was ambitious
of enjoying. Enough: I went, as aforesaid, to the Canongate.
I stood by the kennel, of which I have formerly spoken, and, my
mind being at ease, my bodily organs were more delicate. I was
more sensible than heretofore, that, like the trade of Pompey in
MEASURE FOR MEASURE,--it did in some sort--pah an ounce of civet,
good apothecary! Turning from thence, my steps naturally
directed themselves to my own humble apartment, where my little
Highland landlady, as dapper and as tight as ever, (for old women
wear a hundred times better than the hard-wrought seniors of the
masculine sex), stood at the door, TEEDLING to herself a Highland
song as she shook a table napkin over the fore-stair, and then
proceeded to fold it up neatly for future service.
"How do you, Janet?"
"Thank ye, good sir," answered my old friend, without looking at
me; "but ye might as weel say Mrs. MacEvoy, for she is na
a'body's Shanet--umph."
"You must be MY Janet, though, for all that. Have you forgot me?
Do you not remember Chrystal Croftangry?"
The light, kind-hearted creature threw her napkin into the open
door, skipped down the stair like a fairy, three steps at once,
seized me by the hands--both hands--jumped up, and actually
kissed me. I was a little ashamed; but what swain, of somewhere
inclining to sixty could resist the advances of a fair
contemporary? So we allowed the full degree of kindness to the
meeting--HONI SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE--and then Janet entered
instantly upon business. "An ye'll gae in, man, and see your
auld lodgings, nae doubt and Shanet will pay ye the fifteen
shillings of change that ye ran away without, and without bidding
Shanet good day. But never mind" (nodding good-humouredly),
"Shanet saw you were carried for the time."
By this time we were in my old quarters, and Janet, with her
bottle of cordial in one hand and the glass in the other, had
forced on me a dram of usquebaugh, distilled with saffron and
other herbs, after some old-fashioned Highland receipt. Then was
unfolded, out of many a little scrap of paper, the reserved sum
of fifteen shillings, which Janet had treasured for twenty years
and upwards.
"Here they are," she said, in honest triumph, "just the same I
was holding out to ye when ye ran as if ye had been fey. Shanet
has had siller, and Shanet has wanted siller, mony a time since
that. And the gauger has come, and the factor has come, and the
butcher and baker--Cot bless us just like to tear poor auld
Shanet to pieces; but she took good care of Mr. Croftangry's
fifteen shillings."
"But what if I had never come back, Janet?"
"Och, if Shanet had heard you were dead, she would hae gien it to
the poor of the chapel, to pray for Mr. Croftangry," said Janet,
crossing herself, for she was a Catholic, "You maybe do not think
it would do you cood, but the blessing of the poor can never do
no harm,"
I agreed heartily in Janet's conclusion; and as to have desired
her to consider the hoard as her own property would have been an
indelicate return to her for the uprightness of her conduct, I
requested her to dispose of it as she had proposed to do in the
event of my death--that is, if she knew any poor people of merit
to whom it might be useful.
"Ower mony of them," raising the corner of her checked apron to
her eyes--"e'en ower mony of them, Mr. Croftangry. Och, ay.
'There is the puir Highland creatures frae Glenshee, that cam
down for the harvest, and are lying wi' the fever--five shillings
to them; and half a crown to Bessie MacEvoy, whose coodman, puir
creature, died of the frost, being a shairman, for a' the whisky
he could drink to keep it out o' his stamoch; and--"
But she suddenly interrupted the bead-roll of her proposed
charities, and assuming a very sage look, and primming up her
little chattering mouth, she went on in a different tone--"But
och, Mr. Croftangry, bethink ye whether ye will not need a' this
siller yoursel', and maybe look back and think lang for ha'en
kiven it away, whilk is a creat sin to forthink a wark o'
charity, and also is unlucky, and moreover is not the thought of
a shentleman's son like yoursel', dear. And I say this, that ye
may think a bit, for your mother's son kens that ye are no so
careful as you should be of the gear, and I hae tauld ye of it
before, jewel."
I assured her I could easily spare the money, without risk of
future repentance; and she went on to infer that in such a case
"Mr. Croftangry had grown a rich man in foreign parts, and was
free of his troubles with messengers and sheriff-officers, and
siclike scum of the earth, and Shanet MacEvoy's mother's daughter
be a blithe woman to hear it. But if Mr. Croftangry was in
trouble, there was his room, and his ped, and Shanet to wait on
him, and tak payment when it was quite convenient."
I explained to Janet my situation, in which she expressed
unqualified delight. I then proceeded to inquire into her own
circumstances, and though she spoke cheerfully and contentedly, I
could see they were precarious. I had paid more than was due;
other lodgers fell into an opposite error, and forgot to pay
Janet at all. Then, Janet being ignorant of all indirect modes
of screwing money out of her lodgers, others in the same line of
life, who were sharper than the poor, simple Highland woman, were
enabled to let their apartments cheaper in appearance, though the
inmates usually found them twice as dear in the long run.
As I had already destined my old landlady to be my house-keeper
and governante, knowing her honesty, good-nature, and, although a
Scotchwoman, her cleanliness and excellent temper (saving the
short and hasty expressions of anger which Highlanders call a
FUFF), I now proposed the plan to her in such a way as was likely
to make it most acceptable. Very acceptable as the proposal was,
as I could plainly see, Janet, however, took a day to consider
upon it; and her reflections against our next meeting had
suggested only one objection, which was singular enough.
"My honour," so she now termed me, "would pe for biding in some
fine street apout the town. Now Shanet wad ill like to live in a
place where polish, and sheriffs, and bailiffs, and sie thieves
and trash of the world, could tak puir shentlemen by the throat,
just because they wanted a wheen dollars in the sporran. She had
lived in the bonny glen of Tomanthoulick. Cot, an ony of the
vermint had come there, her father wad hae wared a shot on them,
and he could hit a buck within as mony measured yards as e'er a
man of his clan, And the place here was so quiet frae them, they
durst na put their nose ower the gutter. Shanet owed nobody a
bodle, but she couldna pide to see honest folk and pretty
shentlemen forced away to prison whether they would or no; and
then, if Shanet was to lay her tangs ower ane of the ragamuffins'
heads, it would be, maybe, that the law would gi'ed a hard name."
One thing I have learned in life--never to speak sense when
nonsense will answer the purpose as well. I should have had
great difficulty to convince this practical and disinterested
admirer and vindicator of liberty, that arrests seldom or never
were to be seen in the streets of Edinburgh; and to satisfy her
of their justice and necessity would have been as difficult as to
convert her to the Protestant faith. I therefore assured her my
intention, if I could get a suitable habitation, was to remain in
the quarter where she at present dwelt. Janet gave three skips
on the floor, and uttered as many short, shrill yells of joy.
Yet doubt almost instantly returned, and she insisted on knowing
what possible reason I could have for making my residence where
few lived, save those whose misfortunes drove them thither. It
occurred to me to answer her by recounting the legend of the rise
of my family, and of our deriving our name from a particular
place near Holyrood Palace. This, which would have appeared to
most people a very absurd reason for choosing a residence, was
entirely satisfactory to Janet MacEvoy.
"Och, nae doubt! if it was the land of her fathers, there was
nae mair to be said. Put it was queer that her family estate
should just lie at the town tail, and covered with houses, where
the King's cows--Cot bless them, hide and horn--used to craze
upon. It was strange changes." She mused a little, and then
added: "Put it is something better wi' Croftangry when the
changes is frae the field to the habited place, and not from the
place of habitation to the desert; for Shanet, her nainsell, kent
a glen where there were men as weel as there may be in
Croftangry, and if there werena altogether sae mony of them, they
were as good men in their tartan as the others in their
broadcloth. And there were houses, too; and if they were not
biggit with stane and lime, and lofted like the houses at
Croftangry, yet they served the purpose of them that lived there,
and mony a braw bonnet, and mony a silk snood and comely white
curch, would come out to gang to kirk or chapel on the Lord's
day, and little bairns toddling after. And now--Och, Och,
Ohellany, Ohonari! the glen is desolate, and the braw snoods and
bonnets are gane, and the Saxon's house stands dull and lonely,
like the single bare-breasted rock that the falcon builds on--the
falcon that drives the heath-bird frae the glen."
Janet, like many Highlanders, was full of imagination, and, when
melancholy themes came upon her, expressed herself almost
poetically, owing to the genius of the Celtic language in which
she thought, and in which, doubtless, she would have spoken, had
I understood Gaelic. In two minutes the shade of gloom and
regret had passed from her good-humoured features, and she was
again the little, busy, prating, important old woman, undisputed
owner of one flat of a small tenement in the Abbey Yard, and
about to be promoted to be housekeeper to an elderly bachelor
gentleman, Chrystal Croftangry, Esq.
It was not long before Janet's local researches found out exactly
the sort of place I wanted, and there we settled. Janet was
afraid I would not be satisfied, because it is not exactly part
of Croftangry; but I stopped her doubts by assuring her it had
been part and pendicle thereof in my forefather' time, which
passed very well.
I do not intend to possess any one with an exact knowledge of my
lodging; though, as Bobadil says, "I care not who knows it, since
the cabin is convenient." But I may state in general, that it is
a house "within itself," or, according to a newer phraseology in
advertisements, SELF-CONTAINED, has a garden of near half an
acre, and a patch of ground with trees in front. It boasts five
rooms and servants' apartments--looks in front upon the palace,
and from behind towards the hill and crags of the King's Park.
Fortunately, the place had a name, which, with a little
improvement, served to countenance the legend which I had imposed
on Janet, and would not, perhaps have been sorry if I had been
able to impose on myself. It was called Littlecroft; we have
dubbed it Little Croftangry, and the men of letters belonging to
the Post Office have sanctioned the change, and deliver letters
so addressed. Thus I am to all intents and purposes Chrystal
Croftangry of that Ilk.
My establishment consists of Janet, an under maid-servant, and a
Highland wench for Janet to exercise her Gaelic upon, with a
handy lad who can lay the cloth, and take care, besides, of a
pony, on which I find my way to Portobello sands, especially when
the cavalry have a drill; for, like an old fool as I am, I have
not altogether become indifferent to the tramp of horses and the
flash of weapons, of which, though no professional soldier, it
has been my fate to see something in my youth. For wet mornings
I have my book; is it fine weather? I visit, or I wander on the
Crags, as the humour dictates. My dinner is indeed solitary, yet
not quite so neither; for though Andrew waits, Janet--or, as she
is to all the world but her master and certain old Highland
gossips, Mrs. MacEvoy--attends, bustles about, and desires to see
everything is in first-rate order, and to tell me, Cot pless us,
the wonderful news of the palace for the day. When the cloth is
removed, and I light my cigar, and begin to husband a pint of
port, or a glass of old whisky and water, it is the rule of the
house that Janet takes a chair at some distance, and nods or
works her stocking, as she may be disposed--ready to speak, if I
am in the talking humour, and sitting quiet as a mouse if I am
rather inclined to study a book or the newspaper. At six
precisely she makes my tea, and leaves me to drink it; and then
occurs an interval of time which most old bachelors find heavy on
their hands. The theatre is a good occasional resource,
especially if Will Murray acts, or a bright star of eminence
shines forth; but it is distant, and so are one or two public
societies to which I belong. Besides, these evening walks are
all incompatible with the elbow-chair feeling, which desires some
employment that may divert the mind without fatiguing the body.
Under the influence of these impressions, I have sometimes
thought of this literary undertaking. I must have been the
Bonassus himself to have mistaken myself for a genius; yet I have
leisure and reflections like my neighbours. I am a borderer,
also, between two generations, and can point out more, perhaps,
than others of those fading traces of antiquity which are daily
vanishing; and I know many a modern instance and many an old
tradition, and therefore I ask--
"What ails me, I may not as well as they
Rake up some threadbare tales, that mouldering lay
In chimney corners, wont by Christmas fires
To read and rock to sleep our ancient sires?
No man his threshold better knows, than I
Brute's first arrival and first victory,
Saint George's sorrel and his cross of blood,
Arthur's round board and Caledonian wood."
No shop is so easily set up as an antiquary's. Like those of the
lowest order of pawnbrokers, a commodity of rusty iron, a bay or
two of hobnails, a few odd shoe-buckles, cashiered kail-pots, and
fire-irons declared incapable of service, are quite sufficient to
set him up. If he add a sheaf or two of penny ballads and
broadsides, he is a great man--an extensive trader. And then,
like the pawnbrokers aforesaid, if the author understands a
little legerdemain, he may, by dint of a little picking and
stealing, make the inside of his shop a great deal richer than
the out, and be able to show you things which cause those who do
not understand the antiquarian trick of clean conveyance to
wonder how the devil he came by them.
It may be said that antiquarian articles interest but few
customers, and that we may bawl ourselves as rusty as the wares
we deal in without any one asking; the price of our merchandise.
But I do not rest my hopes upon this department of my labours
only. I propose also to have a corresponding shop for Sentiment,
and Dialogues, and Disquisition, which may captivate the fancy of
those who have no relish, as the established phrase goes, for
pure antiquity--a sort of greengrocer's stall erected in front of
my ironmongery wares, garlanding the rusty memorials of ancient
times with cresses, cabbages, leeks, and water purpy.
As I have some idea that I am writing too well to be understood,
I humble myself to ordinary language, and aver, with becoming
modesty, that I do think myself capable of sustaining a
publication of a miscellaneous nature, as like to the Spectator
or the Guardian, the Mirror or the Lounger, as my poor abilities
may be able to accomplish. Not that I have any purpose of
imitating Johnson, whose general learning and power of expression
I do not deny, but many of whose Ramblers are little better than
a sort of pageant, where trite and obvious maxims are made to
swagger in lofty and mystic language, and get some credit only
because they are not easily understood. There are some of the
great moralist's papers which I cannot peruse without thinking on
a second-rate masquerade, where the best-known and least-esteemed
characters in town march in as heroes, and sultans, and so forth,
and, by dint of tawdry dresses, get some consideration until they
are found out. It is not, however, prudent to commence with
throwing stones, just when I am striking out windows of my own.
I think even the local situation of Little Croftangry may be
considered as favourable to my undertaking. A nobler contrast
there can hardly exist than that of the huge city, dark with the
smoke of ages, and groaning with the various sounds of active
industry or idle revel, and the lofty and craggy hill, silent and
solitary as the grave--one exhibiting the full tide of existence,
pressing and precipitating itself forward with the force of an
inundation; the other resembling some time-worn anchorite, whose
life passes as silent and unobserved as the slender rill which
escapes unheard, and scarce seen, from the fountain of his
patron saint. The city resembles the busy temple, where the
modern Comus and Mammon hold their court, and thousands sacrifice
ease, independence, and virtue itself at their shrine; the misty
and lonely mountain seems as a throne to the majestic but
terrible Genius of feudal times, when the same divinities
dispensed coronets and domains to those who had heads to devise
and arms to execute bold enterprises.
I have, as it were, the two extremities of the moral world at my
threshold. From the front door a few minutes' walk brings me
into the heart of a wealthy and populous city; as many paces from
my opposite entrance place me in a solitude as complete as
Zimmerman could have desired. Surely, with such aids to my
imagination, I may write better than if I were in a lodging in
the New Town or a garret in the old. As the Spaniard says,
"VIAMOS--CARACCO!"
I have not chosen to publish periodically, my reason for which
was twofold. In the first place, I don't like to be hurried, and
have had enough of duns in an early part of my life to make me
reluctant to hear of or see one, even in the less awful shape of
a printer's devil. But, secondly, a periodical paper is not
easily extended in circulation beyond the quarter in which it is
published. This work, if published in fugitive numbers, would
scarce, without a high pressure on the part of the bookseller, be
raised above the Netherbow, and never could be expected to ascend
to the level of Princes Street. Now, I am ambitious that my
compositions, though having their origin in this Valley of
Holyrood, should not only be extended into those exalted regions
I have mentioned, but also that they should cross the Forth,
astonish the long town of Kirkcaldy, enchant the skippers and
colliers of the East of Fife, venture even into the classic
arcades of St. Andrews, and travel as much farther to the north
as the breath of applause will carry their sails. As for a
southward direction, it is not to be hoped for in my fondest
dreams. I am informed that Scottish literature, like Scottish
whisky, will be presently laid under a prohibitory duty. But
enough of this. If any reader is dull enough not to comprehend
the advantages which, in point of circulation, a compact book has
over a collection of fugitive numbers, let him try the range of a
gun loaded with hail-shot against that of the same piece charged
with an equal weight of lead consolidated in a single bullet.
Besides, it was of less consequence that I should have published
periodically, since I did not mean to solicit or accept of the
contributions of friends, or the criticisms of those who may be
less kindly disposed. Notwithstanding the excellent examples
which might be quoted, I will establish no begging-box, either
under the name of a lion's head or an ass's. What is good or ill
shall be mine own, or the contribution of friends to whom I may
have private access. Many of my voluntary assistants might be
cleverer than myself, and then I should have a brilliant article
appear among my chiller effusions, like a patch of lace on a
Scottish cloak of Galashiels grey. Some might be worse, and then
I must reject them, to the injury of the feelings of the writer,
or else insert them, to make my own darkness yet more opaque and
palpable. "Let every herring," says our old-fashioned proverb,
"hang by his own head."
One person, however, I may distinguish, as she is now no more,
who, living to the utmost term of human life, honoured me with a
great share of her friendship--as, indeed, we were blood-
relatives in the Scottish sense--Heaven knows how many degrees
removed--and friends in the sense of Old England. I mean the
late excellent and regretted Mrs. Bethune Baliol. But as I
design this admirable picture of the olden time for a principal
character in my work, I will only say here that she knew and
approved of my present purpose; and though she declined to
contribute to it while she lived, from a sense of dignified
retirement, which she thought became her age, sex, and condition
in life, she left me some materials for carrying on my proposed
work which I coveted when I heard her detail them in
conversation, and which now, when I have their substance in her
own handwriting, I account far more valuable than anything I have
myself to offer. I hope the mentioning her name in conjunction
with my own will give no offence to any of her numerous friends,
as it was her own express pleasure that I should employ the
manuscripts which she did me the honour to bequeath me in the
manner in which I have now used them. It must be added, however,
that in most cases I have disguised names, and in some have added
shading and colouring to bring out the narrative.
Much of my materials, besides these, are derived from friends,
living or dead. The accuracy of some of these may be doubtful,
in which case I shall be happy to receive, from sufficient
authority, the correction of the errors which must creep into
traditional documents. The object of the whole publication is to
throw some light on the manners of Scotland as they were, and to
contrast them occasionally with those of the present day. My own
opinions are in favour of our own times in many respects, but not
in so far as affords means for exercising the imagination or
exciting the interest which attaches to other times. I am glad
to be a writer or a reader in 1826, but I would be most
interested in reading or relating what happened from half a
century to a century before. We have the best of it. Scenes in
which our ancestors thought deeply, acted fiercely, and died
desperately, are to us tales to divert the tedium of a winter's
evening, when we are engaged to no party, or beguile a summer's
morning, when it is too scorching to ride or walk.
Yet I do not mean that my essays and narratives should be limited
to Scotland. I pledge myself to no particular line of subjects,
but, on the contrary, say with Burns--
"Perhaps it may turn out a sang,
Perhaps turn out a sermon."
I have only to add, by way of postscript to these preliminary
chapters, that I have had recourse to Moliere's recipe, and read
my manuscript over to my old woman, Janet MacEvoy.
The dignity of being consulted delighted Janet; and Wilkie, or
Allan, would have made a capital sketch of her, as she sat
upright in her chair, instead of her ordinary lounging posture,
knitting her stocking systematically, as if she meant every twist
of her thread and inclination of the wires to bear burden to the
cadence of my voice. I am afraid, too, that I myself felt more
delight than I ought to have done in my own composition, and read
a little more oratorically than I should have ventured to do
before an auditor of whose applause I was not so secure. And the
result did not entirely encourage my plan of censorship. Janet
did indeed seriously incline to the account of my previous life,
and bestowed some Highland maledictions, more emphatic than
courteous, on Christie Steele's reception of a "shentlemans in
distress," and of her own mistress's house too. I omitted for
certain reasons, or greatly abridged, what related to her-self.
But when I came to treat of my general views in publication, I
saw poor Janet was entirely thrown out, though, like a jaded
hunter, panting, puffing, and short of wind, she endeavoured at
least to keep up with the chase. Or, rather, her perplexity made
her look all the while like a deaf person ashamed of his
infirmity, who does not understand a word you are saying, yet
desires you to believe that he does understand you, and who is
extremely jealous that you suspect his incapacity. When she saw
that some remark was necessary, she resembled exactly in her
criticism the devotee who pitched on the "sweet word Mesopotamia"
as the most edifying note which she could bring away from a
sermon. She indeed hastened to bestow general praise on what she
said was all "very fine;" but chiefly dwelt on what I, had said
about Mr. Timmerman, as she was pleased to call the German
philosopher, and supposed he must be of the same descent with the
Highland clan of M'Intyre, which signifies Son of the Carpenter.
"And a fery honourable name too--Shanet's own mither was a
M'Intyre."
In short, it was plain the latter part of my introduction was
altogether lost on poor Janet; and so, to have acted up to
Moliere's system, I should have cancelled the whole, and written
it anew. But I do not know how it is. I retained, I suppose,
some tolerable opinion of my own composition, though Janet did
not comprehend it, and felt loath to retrench those Delilahs of
the imagination, as Dryden calls them, the tropes and figures of
which are caviar to the multitude. Besides, I hate rewriting as
much as Falstaff did paying back--it is a double labour. So I
determined with myself to consult Janet, in future, only on such
things as were within the limits of her comprehension, and hazard
my arguments and my rhetoric on the public without her
imprimatur. I am pretty sure she will "applaud it done." and in
such narratives as come within her range of thought and feeling I
shall, as I first intended, take the benefit of her
unsophisticated judgment, and attend to it deferentially--that
is, when it happens not to be in peculiar opposition to my own;
for, after all, I say with Almanzor,--
"Know that I alone am king of me."
The reader has now my who and my whereabout, the purpose of the
work, and the circumstances under which it is undertaken. He has
also a specimen of the author's talents, and may judge for
himself, and proceed, or send back the volume to the bookseller,
as his own taste shall determine.
CHAPTER VI.
MR. CROFTANGRY'S ACCOUNT OF MRS. BETHUNE BALIOL.
The moon, were she earthly, no nobler. CORIOLANUS.
When we set out on the jolly voyage of life, what a brave fleet
there is around us, as, stretching our finest canvas to the
breeze, all "shipshape and Bristol fashion," pennons flying,
music playing, cheering each other as we pass, we are rather
amused than alarmed when some awkward comrade goes right ashore
for want of pilotage! Alas! when the voyage is well spent, and
we look about us, toil-worn mariners, how few of our ancient
consorts still remain in sight; and they, how torn and wasted,
and, like ourselves, struggling to keep as long as possible off
the fatal shore, against which we are all finally drifting!
I felt this very trite but melancholy truth in all its force the
other day, when a packet with a black seal arrived, containing a
letter addressed to me by my late excellent friend Mrs. Martha
Bethune Baliol, and marked with the fatal indorsation, "To be
delivered according to address, after I shall be no more." A
letter from her executors accompanied the packet, mentioning that
they had found in her will a bequest to me of a painting of some
value, which she stated would just fit the space above my
cupboard, and fifty guineas to buy a ring. And thus I separated,
with all the kindness which we had maintained for many years,
from a friend, who, though old enough to have been the companion
of my mother, was yet, in gaiety of spirits and admirable
sweetness of temper, capable of being agreeable, and even
animating society, for those who write themselves in the vaward
of youth, an advantage which I have lost for these five-and-
thirty years. The contents of the packet I had no difficulty in
guessing, and have partly hinted at them in the last chapter.
But to instruct the reader in the particulars, and at the same
time to indulge myself with recalling the virtues and agreeable
qualities of my late friend, I will give a short sketch of her
manners and habits.
Mrs. Martha Bethune Baliol was a person of quality and fortune,
as these are esteemed in Scotland. Her family was ancient, and
her connections honourable. She was not fond of specially
indicating her exact age, but her juvenile recollections
stretched backwards till before the eventful year 1745, and she
remembered the Highland clans being in possession of the Scottish
capital, though probably only as an indistinct vision. Her
fortune, independent by her father's bequest, was rendered
opulent by the death of more than one brave brother, who fell
successively in the service of their country, so that the family
estates became vested in the only surviving child of the ancient
house of Bethune Baliol. My intimacy was formed with the
excellent lady after this event, and when she was already
something advanced in age.
She inhabited, when in Edinburgh, where she regularly spent the
winter season, one of those old hotels which, till of late, were
to be found in the neighbourhood of the Canongate and of the
Palace of Holyrood House, and which, separated from the street,
now dirty and vulgar, by paved courts and gardens of some extent,
made amends for an indifferent access, by showing something of
aristocratic state and seclusion when you were once admitted
within their precincts. They have pulled her house down; for,
indeed, betwixt building and burning, every ancient monument of
the Scottish capital is now likely to be utterly demolished. I
pause on the recollections of the place, however; and since
nature has denied a pencil when she placed a pen in my hand, I
will endeavour to make words answer the purpose of delineation.
Baliol's Lodging, so was the mansion named, reared its high stack
of chimneys, among which were seen a turret or two, and one of
those small projecting platforms called bartizans, above the mean
and modern buildings which line the south side of the Canongate,
towards the lower end of that street, and not distant from the
Palace. A PORTE COCHERE, having a wicket for foot passengers,
was, upon due occasion, unfolded by a lame old man, tall, grave,
and thin, who tenanted a hovel beside the gate, and acted as
porter. To this office he had been promoted by my friend's
charitable feelings for an old soldier, and partly by an idea
that his head, which was a very fine one, bore some resemblance
to that of Garrick in the character of Lusignan. He was a man
saturnine, silent, and slow in his proceedings, and would never
open the PORTE COCHERE to a hackney coach, indicating the wicket
with his finger as the proper passage for all who came in that
obscure vehicle, which was not permitted to degrade with its
ticketed presence the dignity of Baliol's Lodging. I do not
think this peculiarity would have met with his lady's
approbation, any more than the occasional partiality of Lusignan,
or, as mortals called him, Archie Macready, to a dram. But Mrs.
Martha Bethune Baliol, conscious that, in case of conviction, she
could never have prevailed upon herself to dethrone the King of
Palestine from the stone bench on which he sat for hours knitting
his stocking, refused, by accrediting the intelligence, even to
put him upon his trial, well judging that he would observe more
wholesome caution if he conceived his character unsuspected, than
if he were detected, and suffered to pass unpunished. For after
all, she said, it would be cruel to dismiss an old Highland
soldier for a peccadillo so appropriate to his country and
profession.
The stately gate for carriages, or the humble accommodation for
foot-passengers, admitted into a narrow and short passage running
between two rows of lime-trees, whose green foliage during the
spring contrasted strangely with the swart complexion of the two
walls by the side of which they grew. This access led to the
front of the house, which was formed by two gable ends, notched,
and having their windows adorned with heavy architectural
ornaments. They joined each other at right angles; and a half
circular tower, which contained the entrance and the staircase,
occupied the point of junction, and rounded the acute angle. One
of other two sides of the little court, in which there was just
sufficient room to turn a carriage, was occupied by some low
buildings answering the purpose of offices; the other, by a
parapet surrounded by a highly-ornamented iron railing, twined
round with honeysuckle and other parasitical shrubs, which
permitted the eye to peep into a pretty suburban garden,
extending down to the road called the South Back of the
Canongate, and boasting a number of old trees, many flowers, and
even some fruit. We must not forget to state that the extreme
cleanliness of the courtyard was such as intimated that mop and
pail had done their utmost in that favoured spot to atone for the
general dirt and dinginess of the quarter where the premises were
situated.
Over the doorway were the arms of Bethune and Baliol, with
various other devices, carved in stone. The door itself was
studded with iron nails, and formed of black oak; an iron rasp,
as it was called, was placed on it, instead of a knocker, for the
purpose of summoning the attendants. [See Note 3.--Iron Rasp.]
He who usually appeared at the summons was a smart lad, in a
handsome livery, the son of Mrs. Martha's gardener at Mount
Baliol. Now and then a servant girl, nicely but plainly dressed,
and fully accoutred with stockings and shoes, would perform this
duty; and twice or thrice I remember being admitted by Beauffet
himself, whose exterior looked as much like that of a clergyman
of rank as the butler of a gentleman's family. He had been
valet-de-chambre to the last Sir Richard Bethune Baliol, and was,
a person highly trusted by the present lady. A full stand, as it
is called in Scotland, of garments of a dark colour, gold buckles
in his shoes and at the knees of his breeches, with his hair
regularly dressed and powdered, announced him to be a domestic of
trust and importance. His mistress used to say of him,--
"He is sad and civil,
And suits well for a servant with my fortunes."
As no one can escape scandal, some said that Beauffet made a
rather better thing of the place than the modesty of his old-
fashioned wages would, unassisted, have amounted to. But the man
was always very civil to me. He had been long in the family, had
enjoyed legacies, and lain by a something of his own, upon which
he now enjoys ease with dignity, in as far as his newly-married
wife, Tibbie Shortacres, will permit him.
The Lodging--dearest reader, if you are tired, pray pass over the
next four or five pages--was not by any means so large as its
external appearance led people to conjecture. The interior
accommodation was much cut up by cross walls and long passages,
and that neglect of economizing space which characterizes old
Scottish architecture. But there was far more room than my old
friend required, even when she had, as was often the case, four
or five young cousins under her protection; and I believe much of
the house was unoccupied. Mrs. Bethune Baliol never, in my
presence, showed herself so much offended as once with a meddling
person who advised her to have the windows of these supernumerary
apartments built up to save the tax. She said in ire that, while
she lived, the light of God should visit the house of her
fathers; and while she had a penny, king and country should have
their due. Indeed, she was punctiliously loyal, even in that
most staggering test of loyalty, the payment of imposts. Mr.
Beauffet told me he was ordered to offer a glass of wine to the
person who collected the income tax, and that the poor man was so
overcome by a reception so unwontedly generous, that he had well-
nigh fainted on the spot.
You entered by a matted anteroom into the eating-parlour, filled
with old-fashioned furniture, and hung with family portraits,
which, excepting one of Sir Bernard Bethune, in James the Sixth's
time, said to be by Jameson, were exceedingly frightful. A
saloon, as it was called, a long, narrow chamber, led out of the
dining-parlour, and served for a drawing-room. It was a pleasant
apartment, looking out upon the south flank of Holyrood House,
the gigantic slope of Arthur's Seat, and the girdle of lofty
rocks called Salisbury Crags; objects so rudely wild, that the
mind can hardly conceive them to exist in the vicinage of a
populous metropolis. [The Rev. Mr. Bowles derives the name of
these crags, as of the Episcopal city in the west of England,
from the same root, both, in his opinion, which he very ably
defends and illustrates, having been the sites of Druidical
temples.] The paintings of the saloon came from abroad, and had
some of them much merit. To see the best of them, however, you
must be admitted into the very PENETRALIA of the temple, and
allowed to draw the tapestry at the upper end of the saloon, and
enter Mrs. Martha's own special dressing-room. This was a
charming apartment, of which it would be difficult to describe
the form, it had so many recesses which were filled up with
shelves of ebony and cabinets of japan and ormolu--some for
holding books, of which Mrs. Martha had an admirable collection,
some for a display of ornamental china, others for shells and
similar curiosities. In a little niche, half screened by a
curtain of crimson silk, was disposed a suit of tilting armour of
bright steel inlaid with silver, which had been worn on some
memorable occasion by Sir Bernard Bethune, already mentioned;
while over the canopy of the niche hung the broadsword with which
her father had attempted to change the fortunes of Britain in
1715, and the spontoon which her elder brother bore when he was
leading on a company of the Black Watch at Fontenoy. [The well-
known original designation of the gallant 42nd Regiment. Being
the first corps raised for the royal service in the Highlands,
and allowed to retain their national garb, they were thus named
from the contrast which their dark tartans furnished to the
scarlet and white of the other regiments.]
There were some Italian and Flemish pictures of admitted
authenticity, a few genuine bronzes, and other objects of
curiosity, which her brothers or herself had picked up while
abroad. In short, it was a place where the idle were tempted to
become studious, the studious to grow idle where the grave might
find matter to make them gay, and the gay subjects for gravity.
That it might maintain some title to its name, I must not forget
to say that the lady's dressing-room exhibited a superb mirror,
framed in silver filigree work; a beautiful toilette, the cover
of which was of Flanders lace; and a set of boxes corresponding
in materials and work to the frame of the mirror.
This dressing apparatus, however, was mere matter of parade.
Mrs. Martha Bethune Baliol always went through the actual duties
of the toilette in an inner apartment, which corresponded with
her sleeping-room by a small detached staircase. There were, I
believe, more than one of those TURNPIKE STAIRS, as they were
called, about the house, by which the public rooms, all of which
entered through each other, were accommodated with separate and
independent modes of access. In the little boudoir we have
described, Mrs. Martha Baliol had her choicest meetings. She
kept early hours; and if you went in the morning, you must not
reckon that space of day as extending beyond three o'clock, or
four at the utmost. These vigilant habits were attended with
some restraint on her visitors, but they were indemnified by your
always finding the best society and the best information which
were to be had for the day in the Scottish capital. Without at
all affecting the blue stocking, she liked books. They amused
her; and if the authors were persons of character, she thought
she owed them a debt of civility, which she loved to discharge by
personal kindness. When she gave a dinner to a small party,
which she did now and then, she had the good nature to look for,
and the good luck to discover, what sort of people suited each
other best, and chose her company as Duke Theseus did his
hounds,--
"Matched in mouth like bells,
Each under each,"
[Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream, Act IV. Sc. I.]
so that every guest could take his part in the cry, instead of
one mighty Tom of a fellow, like Dr. Johnson, silencing all
besides by the tremendous depth of his diapason. On such
occasions she afforded CHERE EXQUISE; and every now and then
there was some dish of French, or even Scottish derivation,
which, as well as the numerous assortment of VINS
EXTRAORDINAIRES produced by Mr. Beauffet, gave a sort of antique
and foreign air to the entertainment, which rendered it more
interesting.
It was a great thing to be asked to such parties; and not less so
to be invited to the early CONVERSAZIONE, which, in spite of
fashion, by dint of the best coffee, the finest tea, and CHASSE
CAFE that would have called the dead to life, she contrived now
and then to assemble in her saloon already mentioned, at the
unnatural hour of eight in the evening. At such time the
cheerful old lady seemed to enjoy herself so much in the
happiness of her guests that they exerted themselves in turn to
prolong her amusement and their own; and a certain charm was
excited around, seldom to be met with in parties of pleasure, and
which was founded on the general desire of every one present to
contribute something to the common amusement.
But although it was a great privilege to be admitted to wait on
my excellent friend in the morning, or be invited to her dinner
or evening parties, I prized still higher the right which I had
acquired, by old acquaintance, of visiting Baliol's Lodging upon
the chance of finding its venerable inhabitant preparing for tea,
just about six o'clock in the evening. It was only to two or
three old friends that she permitted this freedom; nor was this
sort of chance-party ever allowed to extend itself beyond five in
number. The answer to those who came later announced that the
company was filled up for the evening, which had the double
effect of making those who waited on Mrs. Bethune Baliol in this
unceremonious manner punctual in observing her hour, and of
adding the zest of a little difficulty to the enjoyment of the
party.
It more frequently happened that only one or two persons partook
of this refreshment on the same evening; or, supposing the case
of a single gentleman, Mrs. Martha, though she did not hesitate
to admit him to her boudoir, after the privilege of the French
and the old Scottish school, took care, as she used to say, to
prescribe all possible propriety, by commanding the attendance of
her principal female attendant, Mrs. Alice Lambskin, who might,
from the gravity and dignity of her appearance, have sufficed to
matronize a whole boarding-school, instead of one maiden lady of
eighty and upwards. As the weather permitted, Mrs. Alice sat
duly remote from the company in a FAUTEUIL behind the projecting
chimney-piece, or in the embrasure of a window, and prosecuted in
Carthusian silence, with indefatigable zeal, a piece of
embroidery, which seemed no bad emblem of eternity.
But I have neglected all this while to introduce my friend
herself to the reader--at least so far as words can convey the
peculiarities by which her appearance and conversation were
distinguished.
A little woman, with ordinary features and an ordinary form, and
hair which in youth had no decided colour, we may believe Mrs.
Martha when she said of herself that she was never remarkable for
personal charms; a modest admission, which was readily confirmed
by certain old ladies, her contemporaries, who, whatever might
have been the youthful advantages which they more than hinted had
been formerly their own share, were now in personal appearance,
as well as in everything else, far inferior to my accomplished
friend. Mrs. Martha's features had been of a kind which might be
said to wear well; their irregularity was now of little
consequence, animated, as they were, by the vivacity of her
conversation. Her teeth were excellent, and her eyes, although
inclining to grey, were lively, laughing, and undimmed by time.
A slight shade of complexion, more brilliant than her years
promised, subjected my friend amongst strangers to the suspicion
of having stretched her foreign habits as far as the prudent
touch of the rouge. But it was a calumny; for when telling or
listening to an interesting and affecting story, I have seen her
colour come and go as if it played on the cheek of eighteen.
Her hair, whatever its former deficiencies was now the most
beautiful white that time could bleach, and was disposed with
some degree of pretension, though in the simplest manner
possible, so as to appear neatly smoothed under a cap of Flanders
lace, of an old-fashioned but, as I thought, of a very handsome
form, which undoubtedly has a name, and I would endeavour to
recur to it, if I thought it would make my description a bit more
intelligible. I think I have heard her say these favourite caps
had been her mother's, and had come in fashion with a peculiar
kind of wig used by the gentlemen about the time of the battle of
Ramillies. The rest of her dress was always rather costly and
distinguished, especially in the evening. A silk or satin gown
of some colour becoming her age, and of a form which, though
complying to a certain degree with the present fashion, had
always a reference to some more distant period, was garnished
with triple ruffles. Her shoes had diamond buckles, and were
raised a little at heel, an advantage which, possessed in her
youth, she alleged her size would not permit her to forego in her
old age. She always wore rings, bracelets, and other ornaments
of value, either for the materials or the workmanship; nay,
perhaps she was a little profuse in this species of display. But
she wore them as subordinate matters, to which the habits of
being constantly in high life rendered her indifferent; she wore
them because her rank required it, and thought no more of them as
articles of finery than a gentleman dressed for dinner thinks of
his clean linen and well-brushed coat, the consciousness of which
embarrasses the rustic beau on a Sunday.
Now and then, however, if a gem or ornament chanced to be noticed
for its beauty or singularity, the observation usually led the
way to an entertaining account of the manner in which it had been
acquired, or the person from whom it had descended to its present
possessor. On such and similar occasions my old friend spoke
willingly, which is not uncommon; but she also, which is more
rare, spoke remarkably well, and had in her little narratives
concerning foreign parts or former days, which formed an
interesting part of her conversation, the singular art of
dismissing all the usual protracted tautology respecting time,
place, and circumstances which is apt to settle like a mist upon
the cold and languid tales of age, and at the same time of
bringing forward, dwelling upon, and illustrating those incidents
and characters which give point and interest to the story.
She had, as we have hinted, travelled a good deal in foreign
countries; for a brother, to whom she was much attached, had been
sent upon various missions of national importance to the
Continent, and she had more than once embraced the opportunity of
accompanying him. This furnished a great addition to the
information which she could supply, especially during the last
war, when the Continent was for so many years hermetically sealed
against the English nation. But, besides, Mrs. Bethune Baliol
visited different countries, not in the modern fashion, when
English travel in caravans together, and see in France and Italy
little besides the same society which they might have enjoyed at
home. On the contrary, she mingled when abroad with the natives
of those countries she visited, and enjoyed at once the advantage
of their society, and the pleasure of comparing it with that of
Britain.
In the course of her becoming habituated with foreign manners,
Mrs. Bethune Baliol had, perhaps, acquired some slight tincture
of them herself. Yet I was always persuaded that the peculiar
vivacity of look and manner--the pointed and appropriate action
with which she accompanied what she said--the use of the gold and
gemmed TABATIERE, or rather, I should say, BONBONNIERE (for she
took no snuff, and the little box contained only a few pieces of
candled angelica, or some such ladylike sweetmeat), were of real
old-fashioned Scottish growth, and such as might have graced the
tea-table of Susannah, Countess of Eglinton, the patroness of
Allan Ramsay [See Note 4.--Countess of Eglinton.], or of the
Hon. Mrs. Colonel Ogilvy, who was another mirror by whom the
Maidens of Auld Reekie were required to dress themselves.
Although well acquainted with the customs of other countries, her
manners had been chiefly formed in her own, at a time when great
folk lived within little space and when the distinguished names
of the highest society gave to Edinburgh the ECLAT which we now
endeavour to derive from the unbounded expense and extended
circle of our pleasures.
I was more confirmed in this opinion by the peculiarity of the
dialect which Mrs. Baliol used. It was Scottish--decidedly
Scottish--often containing phrases and words little used in the
present day. But then her tone and mode of pronunciation were as
different from the usual accent of the ordinary Scotch PATOIS, as
the accent of St. James's is from that of Billingsgate. The
vowels were not pronounced much broader than in the Italian
language, and there was none of the disagreeable drawl which is
so offensive to southern ears. In short, it seemed to be the
Scottish as spoken by the ancient Court of Scotland, to which no
idea of vulgarity could be attached; and the lively manners and
gestures with which it was accompanied were so completely in
accord with the sound of the voice and the style of talking, that
I cannot assign them a different origin. In long derivation,
perhaps the manner of the Scottish court might have been
originally formed on that of France, to which it had certainly
some affinity; but I will live and die in the belief that those
of Mrs. Baliol, as pleasing as they were peculiar, came to her by
direct descent from the high dames who anciently adorned with
their presence the royal halls of Holyrood.
CHAPTER VII.
MRS. BALIOL ASSISTS MR. CROFTANGRY IN HIS LITERARY SPECULATIONS.
Such as I have described Mrs. Bethune Baliol, the reader will
easily believe that, when I thought of the miscellaneous nature
of my work, I rested upon the information she possessed, and her
communicative disposition, as one of the principal supports of my
enterprise. Indeed, she by no means disapproved of my proposed
publication, though expressing herself very doubtful how far she
could personally assist it--a doubt which might be, perhaps, set
down to a little ladylike coquetry, which required to be sued for
the boon she was not unwilling to grant. Or, perhaps, the good
old lady, conscious that her unusual term of years must soon draw
to a close, preferred bequeathing the materials in the shape of a
legacy, to subjecting them to the judgment of a critical public
during her lifetime.
Many a time I used, in our conversations of the Canongate, to
resume my request of assistance, from a sense that my friend was
the most valuable depository of Scottish traditions that was
probably now to be found. This was a subject on which my mind
was so much made up that, when I heard her carry her description
of manners so far back beyond her own time, and describe how
Fletcher of Salton spoke, how Graham of Claverhouse danced, what
were the jewels worn by the famous Duchess of Lauderdale, and how
she came by them, I could not help telling her I thought her some
fairy, who cheated us by retaining the appearance of a mortal of
our own day, when, in fact, she had witnessed the revolutions of
centuries. She was much diverted when I required her to take
some solemn oath that she had not danced at the balls given by
Mary of Este, when her unhappy husband occupied Holyrood in a
species of honourable banishment; [The Duke of York afterwards
James II., frequently resided in Holyrood House when his religion
rendered him an object of suspicion to the English Parliament.]
or asked whether she could not recollect Charles the Second when
he came to Scotland in 1650, and did not possess some slight
recollections of the bold usurper who drove him beyond the Forth.
"BEAU COUSIN," she said, laughing, "none of these do I remember
personally, but you must know there has been wonderfully little
change on my natural temper from youth to age. From which it
follows, cousin, that, being even now something too young in
spirit for the years which Time has marked me in his calendar, I
was, when a girl, a little too old for those of my own standing,
and as much inclined at that period to keep the society of elder
persons, as I am now disposed to admit the company of gay young
fellows of fifty or sixty like yourself, rather than collect
about me all the octogenarians. Now, although I do not actually
come from Elfland, and therefore cannot boast any personal
knowledge of the great personages you enquire about, yet I have
seen and heard those who knew them well, and who have given me as
distinct an account of them as I could give you myself of the
Empress Queen, or Frederick of Prussia; and I will frankly add,"
said she, laughing and offering her BONBONNIERE, "that I HAVE
heard so much of the years which immediately succeeded the
Revolution, that I sometimes am apt to confuse the vivid
descriptions fixed on my memory by the frequent and animated
recitation of others, for things which I myself have actually
witnessed. I caught myself but yesterday describing to Lord M--
the riding of the last Scottish Parliament, with as much
minuteness as if I had seen it, as my mother did, from the
balcony in front of Lord Moray's Lodging in the Canongate."
"I am sure you must have given Lord M-- a high treat."
"I treated him to a hearty laugh, I believe," she replied; "but
it is you, you vile seducer of youth, who lead me into such
follies. But I will be on my guard against my own weakness. I
do not well know if the Wandering Jew is supposed to have a wife,
but I should be sorry a decent middle-aged Scottish gentlewoman
should be suspected of identity with such a supernatural person."
"For all that, I must torture you a little more, MA BELLE
COUSINE, with my interrogatories; for how shall I ever turn
author unless on the strength of the information which you have
so often procured me on the ancient state of manners?"
"Stay, I cannot allow you to give your points of enquiry a name
so very venerable, if I am expected to answer them. Ancient is a
term for antediluvians. You may catechise me about the battle of
Flodden, or ask particulars about Bruce and Wallace, under
pretext of curiosity after ancient manners; and that last subject
would wake my Baliol blood, you know."
"Well, but, Mrs. Baliol, suppose we settle our era: you do not
call the accession of James the Sixth to the kingdom of Britain
very ancient?"
"Umph! no, cousin; I think I could tell you more of that than
folk nowadays remember. For instance, that as James was trooping
towards England, bag and baggage, his journey was stopped near
Cockenzie by meeting the funeral of the Earl of Winton, the old
and faithful servant and follower of his ill-fated mother, poor
Mary! It was an ill omen for the INFARE, and so was seen of it,
cousin." [See Note 5.--Earl of Winton.]
I did not choose to prosecute this subject, well knowing Mrs.
Bethune Baliol did not like to be much pressed on the subject of
the Stewarts, whose misfortunes she pitied, the rather that her
father had espoused their cause. And yet her attachment to the
present dynasty being very sincere, and even ardent, more
especially as her family had served his late Majesty both in
peace and war, she experienced a little embarrassment in
reconciling her opinions respecting the exiled family with those
she entertained for the present. In fact, like many an old
Jacobite, she was contented to be somewhat inconsistent on the
subject, comforting herself that NOW everything stood as it ought
to do, and that there was no use in looking back narrowly on the
right or wrong of the matter half a century ago.
"The Highlands," I suggested, "should furnish you with ample
subjects of recollection. You have witnessed the complete change
of that primeval country, and have seen a race not far removed
from the earliest period of society melted down into the great
mass of civilization; and that could not happen without incidents
striking in themselves, and curious as chapters in the history of
the human race."
"It is very true," said Mrs. Baliol; "one would think it should
have struck the observers greatly, and yet it scarcely did so.
For me, I was no Highlander myself, and the Highland chiefs of
old, of whom I certainly knew several, had little in their
manners to distinguish them from the Lowland gentry, when they
mixed in society in Edinburgh, and assumed the Lowland dress.
Their peculiar character was for the clansmen at home; and you
must not imagine that they swaggered about in plaids and
broadswords at the Cross, or came to the Assembly Rooms in
bonnets and kilts."
"I remember," said I, "that Swift, in his Journal, tells Stella
he had dined in the house of a Scots nobleman, with two Highland
chiefs, whom he had found as well-bred men as he had ever met
with." [Extract of Journal to Stella.--"I dined to-day (12th
March 1712) with Lord Treasurer and two gentlemen of the
Highlands of Scotland, yet very polite men." SWIFT'S WORKS, VOL.
III. p.7. EDIN. 1824.]
"Very likely," said my friend. "The extremes of society approach
much more closely to each other than perhaps the Dean of Saint
Patrick's expected. The savage is always to a certain degree
polite. Besides, going always armed, and having a very
punctilious idea of their own gentility and consequence, they
usually behaved to each other and to the Lowlanders with a good
deal of formal politeness, which sometimes even procured them the
character of insincerity."
"Falsehood belongs to an early period of society, as well as the
deferential forms which we style politeness," I replied. "A
child does not see the least moral beauty in truth until he has
been flogged half a dozen times. It is so easy, and apparently
so natural, to deny what you cannot be easily convicted of, that
a savage as well as a child lies to excuse himself almost as
instinctively as he raises his hand to protect his head. The old
saying, 'Confess and be hanged,' carries much argument in it. I
observed a remark the other day in old Birrel. He mentions that
M'Gregor of Glenstrae and some of his people had surrendered
themselves to one of the Earls of Argyle, upon the express
condition that they should be conveyed safe into England. The
Maccallum Mhor of the day kept the word of promise, but it was
only to the ear. He indeed sent his captives to Berwick, where
they had an airing on the other side of the Tweed; but it was
under the custody of a strong guard, by whom they were brought
back to Edinburgh, and delivered to the executioner. This,
Birrel calls keeping a Highlandman's promise." [See Note 6.--
M'Gregor of Glenstrae.]
"Well," replied Mrs. Baliol, "I might add that many of the
Highland chiefs whom I knew in former days had been brought up in
France, which might improve their politeness, though perhaps it
did not amend their sincerity. But considering that, belonging
to the depressed and defeated faction in the state, they were
compelled sometimes to use dissimulation, you must set their
uniform fidelity to their friends; against their occasional
falsehood to their enemies, and then you will not judge poor John
Highlandman too severely. They were in a state of society where
bright lights are strongly contrasted with deep shadows."
"It is to that point I would bring you, MA BELLE COUSINE; and
therefore they are most proper subjects for composition."
"And you want to turn composer, my good friend, and set my old
tales to some popular tune? But there have been too many
composers, if that be the word, in the field before. The
Highlands WERE indeed a rich mine; but they have, I think, been
fairly wrought out, as a good tune is grinded into vulgarity when
it descends to the hurdy-gurdy and the barrel-organ."
"If it be really tune," I replied, "it will recover its better
qualities when it gets into the hands of better artists."
"Umph!" said Mrs. Baliol, tapping her box, "we are happy in our
own good opinion this evening, Mr. Croftangry. And so you think
you can restore the gloss to the tartan which it has lost by
being dragged through so many fingers?"
"With your assistance to procure materials, my dear lady, much, I
think, may be done."
"Well, I must do my best, I suppose, though all I know about the
Gael is but of little consequence. Indeed, I gathered it chiefly
from Donald MacLeish."
"And who might Donald MacLeish be?"
"Neither bard nor sennachie, I assure you, nor monk nor hermit,
the approved authorities for old traditions. Donald was as good
a postilion as ever drove a chaise and pair between Glencroe and
Inverary. I assure you, when I give you my Highland anecdotes,
you will hear much of Donald MacLeish. He was Alice Lambskin's
beau and mine through a long Highland tour."
"But when am I to possess these anecdotes? you answer me as
Harley did poor Prior--
'Let that be done which Mat doth say--
Yea, quoth the Earl, but not to-day.'"
"Well, MON BEAU COUSIN, if you begin to remind me of my cruelty,
I must remind you it has struck nine on the Abbey clock, and it
is time you were going home to Little Croftangry. For my promise
to assist your antiquarian researches, be assured I will one day
keep it to the utmost extent. It shall not be a Highlandman's
promise, as your old citizen calls it."
I by this time suspected the purpose of my friend's
procrastination; and it saddened my heart to reflect that I was
not to get the information which I desired, excepting in the
shape of a legacy. I found accordingly, in the packet
transmitted to me after the excellent lady's death, several
anecdotes respecting the Highlands, from which I have selected
that which follows, chiefly on account of its possessing great
power over the feelings of my critical housekeeper, Janet M'Evoy,
who wept most bitterly when I read it to her.
It is, however, but a very simple tale, and may have no interest
for persons beyond Janet's rank of life or understanding.
*
THE HIGHLAND WIDOW
CHAPTER I.
It wound as near as near could be,
But what it is she cannot tell;
On the other side it seemed to be
Of the huge broad-breasted old oak-tree. COLERIDGE.
Mrs. Bethune Baliol's memorandum begins thus:--
It is five-and-thirty, or perhaps nearer forty years ago, since,
to relieve the dejection of spirits occasioned by a great family
loss sustained two or three months before, I undertook what was
called the short Highland tour. This had become in some degree
fashionable; but though the military roads were excellent, yet
the accommodation was so indifferent that it was reckoned a
little adventure to accomplish it. Besides, the Highlands,
though now as peaceable as any part of King George's dominions,
was a sound which still carried terror, while so many survived
who had witnessed the insurrection of 1745; and a vague idea of
fear was impressed on many as they looked from the towers of
Stirling northward to the huge chain of mountains, which rises
like a dusky rampart to conceal in its recesses a people whose
dress, manners, and language differed still very much from those
of their Lowland countrymen. For my part, I come of a race not
greatly subject to apprehensions arising from imagination only.
I had some Highland relatives; know several of their families of
distinction; and though only having the company of my bower-
maiden, Mrs. Alice Lambskin, I went on my journey fearless.
But then I had a guide and cicerone, almost equal to Greatheart
in the Pilgrim's Progress, in no less a person than Donald
MacLeish, the postilion whom I hired at Stirling, with a pair of
able-bodied horses, as steady as Donald himself, to drag my
carriage, my duenna, and myself, wheresoever it was my pleasure
to go.
Donald MacLeish was one of a race of post-boys whom, I suppose,
mail-coaches and steamboats have put out of fashion. They were
to be found chiefly at Perth, Stirling, or Glasgow, where they
and their horses were usually hired by travellers, or tourists,
to accomplish such journeys of business or pleasure as they might
have to perform in the land of the Gael. This class of persons
approached to the character of what is called abroad a
CONDUCTEUR; or might be compared to the sailing-master on board a
British ship of war, who follows out after his own manner the
course which the captain commands him to observe. You explained
to your postilion the length of your tour, and the objects you
were desirous it should embrace; and you found him perfectly
competent to fix the places of rest or refreshment, with due
attention that those should be chosen with reference to your
convenience, and to any points of interest which you might desire
to visit.
The qualifications of such a person were necessarily much
superior to those of the "first ready," who gallops thrice-a-day
over the same ten miles. Donald MacLeish, besides being quite
alert at repairing all ordinary accidents to his horses and
carriage, and in making shift to support them, where forage was
scarce, with such substitutes as bannocks and cakes, was likewise
a man of intellectual resources. He had acquired a general
knowledge of the traditional stories of the country which he had
traversed so often; and if encouraged (for Donald was a man of
the most decorous reserve), he would willingly point out to you
the site of the principal clan-battles, and recount the most
remarkable legends by which the road, and the objects which
occurred in travelling it, had been distinguished. There was
some originality in the man's habits of thinking and expressing
himself, his turn for legendary lore strangely contrasting with a
portion of the knowing shrewdness belonging to his actual
occupation, which made his conversation amuse the way well
enough.
Add to this, Donald knew all his peculiar duties in the country
which he traversed so frequently. He could tell, to a day, when
they would "be killing" lamb at Tyndrum or Glenuilt; so that the
stranger would have some chance of being fed like a Christian;
and knew to a mile the last village where it was possible to
procure a wheaten loaf for the guidance of those who were little
familiar with the Land of Cakes. He was acquainted with the road
every mile, and could tell to an inch which side of a Highland
bridge was passable, which decidedly dangerous. [This is, or was
at least, a necessary accomplishment. In one of the most
beautiful districts of the Highlands was, not many years since, a
bridge bearing this startling caution, "Keep to the right side,
the left being dangerous."] In short, Donald MacLeish was not
only our faithful attendant and steady servant, but our humble
and obliging friend; and though I have known the half-classical
cicerone of Italy, the talkative French valet-de-place, and even
the muleteer of Spain, who piques himself on being a maize-eater,
and whose honour is not to be questioned without danger, I do not
think I have ever had so sensible and intelligent a guide.
Our motions were of course under Donald's direction; and it
frequently happened, when the weather was serene, that we
preferred halting to rest his horses even where there was no
established stage, and taking our refreshment under a crag, from
which leaped a waterfall, or beside the verge of a fountain,
enamelled with verdant turf and wild-flowers. Donald had an eye
for such spots, and though he had, I dare say, never read Gil
Blas or Don Quixote, yet he chose such halting-places as Le Sage
or Cervantes would have described. Very often, as he observed
the pleasure I took in conversing with the country people, he
would manage to fix our place of rest near a cottage, where there
was some old Gael whose broadsword had blazed at Falkirk or
Preston, and who seemed the frail yet faithful record of times
which had passed away. Or he would contrive to quarter us, as
far as a cup of tea went, upon the hospitality of some parish
minister of worth and intelligence, or some country family of the
better class, who mingled with the wild simplicity of their
original manners, and their ready and hospitable welcome, a sort
of courtesy belonging to a people, the lowest of whom are
accustomed to consider themselves as being, according to the
Spanish phrase, "as good gentlemen as the king, only not quite so
rich."
To all such persons Donald MacLeish was well known, and his
introduction passed as current as if we had brought letters from
some high chief of the country.
Sometimes it happened that the Highland hospitality, which
welcomed us with all the variety of mountain fare, preparations
of milk and eggs, and girdle-cakes of various kinds, as well as
more substantial dainties, according to the inhabitant's means of
regaling the passenger, descended rather too exuberantly on
Donald MacLeish in the shape of mountain dew. Poor Donald! he
was on such occasions like Gideon's fleece--moist with the noble
element, which, of course, fell not on us. But it was his only
fault, and when pressed to drink DOCH-AN-DORROCH to my ladyship's
good health, it would have been ill taken to have refused the
pledge; nor was he willing to do such discourtesy. It was, I
repeat, his only fault. Nor had we any great right to complain;
for if it rendered him a little more talkative, it augmented his
ordinary share of punctilious civility, and he only drove slower,
and talked longer and more pompously, than when he had not come
by a drop of usquebaugh. It was, we remarked, only on such
occasions that Donald talked with an air of importance of the
family of MacLeish; and we had no title to be scrupulous in
censuring a foible, the consequences of which were confined
within such innocent limits.
We became so much accustomed to Donald's mode of managing us,
that we observed with some interest the art which he used to
produce a little agreeable surprise, by concealing from us the
spot where he proposed our halt to be made, when it was of an
unusual and interesting character. This was so much his wont
that, when he made apologies at setting off for being obliged to
stop in some strange, solitary place till the horses should eat
the corn which he brought on with them for that purpose, our
imagination used to be on the stretch to guess what romantic
retreat he had secretly fixed upon for our noontide baiting-
place.
We had spent the greater part of the morning at the delightful
village of Dalmally, and had gone upon the lake under the
guidance of the excellent clergyman who was then incumbent at
Glenorquhy, [This venerable and hospitable gentleman's name was
MacIntyre.] and had heard a hundred legends of the stern chiefs
of Loch Awe, Duncan with the thrum bonnet, and the other lords of
the now mouldering towers of Kilchurn. [See Note 7.--Loch Awe.]
Thus it was later than usual when we set out on our journey,
after a hint or two from Donald concerning the length of the way
to the next stage, as there was no good halting-place between
Dalmally and Oban.
Having bid adieu to our venerable and kind cicerone, we proceeded
on our tour, winding round the tremendous mountain called
Cruachan Ben, which rushes down in all its majesty of rocks and
wilderness on the lake, leaving only a pass, in which,
notwithstanding its extreme strength, the warlike clan of
MacDougal of Lorn were almost destroyed by the sagacious Robert
Bruce. That King, the Wellington of his day, had accomplished,
by a forced march, the unexpected manoeuvre of forcing a body of
troops round the other side of the mountain, and thus placed them
in the flank and in the rear of the men of Lorn, whom at the same
time, he attacked in front. The great number of cairns yet
visible as you descend the pass on the westward side shows the
extent of the vengeance which Bruce exhausted on his inveterate
and personal enemies. I am, you know, the sister of soldiers,
and it has since struck me forcibly that the manoeuvre which
Donald described, resembled those of Wellington or of Bonaparte.
He was a great man Robert Bruce, even a Baliol must admit that;
although it begins now to be allowed that his title to the crown
was scarce so good as that of the unfortunate family with whom he
contended. But let that pass. The slaughter had been the
greater, as the deep and rapid river Awe is disgorged from the
lake just in the rear of the fugitives, and encircles the base of
the tremendous mountain; so that the retreat of the unfortunate
fleers was intercepted on all sides by the inaccessible character
of the country, which had seemed to promise them defence and
protection. [See Note 8.--Battle betwixt the armies of the Bruce
and MacDougal of Lorn.]
Musing, like the Irish lady in the song, "upon things which are
long enough a-gone," [This is a line from a very pathetic ballad
which I heard sung by one of the young ladies of Edgeworthstown
in 1825. I do not know that it has been printed.] we felt no
impatience at the slow and almost creeping pace with which our
conductor proceeded along General Wade's military road, which
never or rarely condescends to turn aside from the steepest
ascent, but proceeds right up and down hill, with the
indifference to height and hollow, steep or level, indicated by
the old Roman engineers. Still, however, the substantial
excellence of these great works--for such are the military
highways in the Highlands--deserved the compliment of the poet,
who, whether he came from our sister kingdom, and spoke in his
own dialect, or whether he supposed those whom he addressed might
have some national pretension to the second sight, produced the
celebrated couplet,--
"Had you but seen these roads BEFORE they were made,
You would hold up your hands and bless General Wade."
Nothing, indeed, can be more wonderful than to see these
wildernesses penetrated and pervious in every quarter by broad
accesses of the best possible construction, and so superior to
what the country could have demanded for many centuries for any
pacific purpose of commercial intercourse. Thus the traces of
war are sometimes happily accommodated to the purposes of peace.
The victories of Bonaparte have been without results but his road
over the Simplon will long be the communication betwixt peaceful
countries, who will apply to the ends of commerce and friendly
intercourse that gigantic work, which was formed for the
ambitious purpose of warlike invasion.
While we were thus stealing along, we gradually turned round the
shoulder of Ben Cruachan, and descending the course of the
foaming and rapid Awe, left behind us the expanse of the majestic
lake which gives birth to that impetuous river. The rocks and
precipices which stooped down perpendicularly on our path on the
right hand exhibited a few remains of the wood which once clothed
them, but which had in later times been felled to supply, Donald
MacLeish informed us, the iron foundries at the Bunawe. This
made us fix our eyes with interest on one large oak, which grew
on the left hand towards the river. It seemed a tree of
extraordinary magnitude and picturesque beauty, and stood just
where there appeared to be a few roods of open ground lying among
huge stones, which had rolled down from the mountain. To add to
the romance of the situation, the spot of clear ground extended
round the foot of a proud-browed rock, from the summit of which
leaped a mountain stream in a fall of sixty feet, in which it was
dissolved into foam and dew. At the bottom of the fall the
rivulet with difficulty collected, like a routed general, its
dispersed forces, and, as if tamed by its descent, found a
noiseless passage through the heath to join the Awe.
I was much struck with the tree and waterfall, and wished myself
nearer them; not that I thought of sketch-book or portfolio--for
in my younger days misses were not accustomed to black-lead
pencils, unless they could use them to some good purpose--but
merely to indulge myself with a closer view. Donald immediately
opened the chaise door, but observed it was rough walking down
the brae, and that I would see the tree better by keeping the
road for a hundred yards farther, when it passed closer to the
spot, for which he seemed, however, to have no predilection. "He
knew," he said, "a far bigger tree than that nearer Bunawe, and
it was a place where there was flat ground for the carriage to
stand, which it could jimply do on these braes; but just as my
leddyship liked."
My ladyship did choose rather to look at the fine tree before me
than to pass it by in hopes of a finer; so we walked beside the
carriage till we should come to a point, from which, Donald
assured us, we might, without scrambling, go as near the tree as
we chose, "though he wadna advise us to go nearer than the
highroad."
There was something grave and mysterious in Donald's sun-browned
countenance when he gave us this intimation, and his manner was
so different from his usual frankness, that my female curiosity
was set in motion. We walked on the whilst, and I found the
tree, of which we had now lost sight by the intervention of some
rising ground, was really more distant than I had at first
supposed. "I could have sworn now," said I to my cicerone, "that
yon tree and waterfall was the very place where you intended to
make a stop to-day."
"The Lord forbid!" said Donald hastily.
"And for what, Donald? Why should you be willing to pass so
pleasant a spot?"
"It's ower near Dalmally, my leddy, to corn the beasts; it would
bring their dinner ower near their breakfast, poor things. An'
besides, the place is not canny."
"Oh! then the mystery is out. There is a bogle or a brownie, a
witch or a gyre-carlin, a bodach or a fairy, in the case?"
"The ne'er a bit, my leddy--ye are clean aff the road, as I may
say. But if your leddyship will just hae patience, and wait till
we are by the place and out of the glen, I'll tell ye all about
it. There is no much luck in speaking of such things in the
place they chanced in."
I was obliged to suspend my curiosity, observing, that if I
persisted in twisting the discourse one way while Donald was
twining it another, I should make his objection, like a hempen
cord, just so much the tougher. At length the promised turn of
the road brought us within fifty paces of the tree which I
desired to admire, and I now saw to my surprise, that there was a
human habitation among the cliffs which surrounded it. It was a
hut of the least dimensions, and most miserable description that
I ever saw even in the Highlands. The walls of sod, or DIVOT, as
the Scotch call it, were not four feet high; the roof was of
turf, repaired with reeds and sedges; the chimney was composed of
clay, bound round by straw ropes; and the whole walls, roof, and
chimney, were alike covered with the vegetation of house-leek,
rye-grass, and moss common to decayed cottages formed of such
materials. There was not the slightest vestige of a kale-yard,
the usual accompaniment of the very worst huts; and of living
things we saw nothing, save a kid which was browsing on the roof
of the hut, and a goat, its mother, at some distance, feeding
betwixt the oak and the river Awe.
"What man," I could not help exclaiming, "can have committed sin
deep enough to deserve such a miserable dwelling!"
"Sin enough," said Donald MacLeish, with a half-suppressed groan;
"and God he knoweth, misery enough too. And it is no man's
dwelling neither, but a woman's."
"A woman's!" I repeated, "and in so lonely a place! What sort
of a woman can she be?"
"Come this way, my leddy, and you may judge that for yourself,"
said Donald. And by advancing a few steps, and making a sharp
turn to the left, we gained a sight of the side of the great
broad-breasted oak, in the direction opposed to that in which we
had hitherto seen it.
"If she keeps her old wont, she will be there at this hour of the
day," said Donald; but immediately became silent, and pointed
with his finger, as one afraid of being overheard. I looked, and
beheld, not without some sense of awe, a female form seated by
the stem of the oak, with her head drooping, her hands clasped,
and a dark-coloured mantle drawn over her head, exactly as Judah
is represented in the Syrian medals as seated under her palm-
tree. I was infected with the fear and reverence which my guide
seemed to entertain towards this solitary being, nor did I think
of advancing towards her to obtain a nearer view until I had cast
an enquiring look on Donald; to which be replied in a half
whisper, "She has been a fearfu' bad woman, my leddy."
"Mad woman, said you," replied I, hearing him imperfectly; "then
she is perhaps dangerous?"
"No--she is not mad," replied Donald; "for then it may be she
would be happier than she is; though when she thinks on what she
has done, and caused to be done, rather than yield up a hair-
breadth of her ain wicked will, it is not likely she can be very
well settled. But she neither is mad nor mischievous; and yet,
my leddy, I think you had best not go nearer to her." And then,
in a few hurried words, he made me acquainted with the story
which I am now to tell more in detail. I heard the narrative
with a mixture of horror and sympathy, which at once impelled me
to approach the sufferer, and speak to her the words of comfort,
or rather of pity, and at the same time made me afraid to do so.
This indeed was the feeling with which she was regarded by the
Highlanders in the neighbourhood, who looked upon Elspat
MacTavish, or the Woman of the Tree, as they called her, as the
Greeks considered those who were pursued by the Furies, and
endured the mental torment consequent on great criminal actions.
They regarded such unhappy beings as Orestes and OEdipus, as
being less the voluntary perpetrators of their crimes than as the
passive instruments by which the terrible decrees of Destiny had
been accomplished; and the fear with which they beheld them was
not unmingled with veneration.
I also learned further from Donald MacLeish, that there was some
apprehension of ill luck attending those who had the boldness to
approach too near, or disturb the awful solitude of a being so
unutterably miserable--that it was supposed that whosoever
approached her must experience in some respect the contagion of
her wretchedness.
It was therefore with some reluctance that Donald saw me prepare
to obtain a nearer view of the sufferer, and that he himself
followed to assist me in the descent down a very rough path. I
believe his regard for me conquered some ominous feelings in his
own breast, which connected his duty on this occasion with the
presaging fear of lame horses, lost linch-pins, overturns, and
other perilous chances of the postilion's life.
I am not sure if my own courage would have carried me so close to
Elspat had he not followed. There was in her countenance the
stern abstraction of hopeless and overpowering sorrow, mixed with
the contending feelings of remorse, and of the pride which
struggled to conceal it. She guessed, perhaps, that it was
curiosity, arising out of her uncommon story, which induced me to
intrude on her solitude; and she could not be pleased that a fate
like hers had been the theme of a traveller's amusement. Yet the
look with which she regarded me was one of scorn instead of
embarrassment. The opinion of the world and all its children
could not add or take an iota from her load of misery; and, save
from the half smile that seemed to intimate the contempt of a
being rapt by the very intensity of her affliction above the
sphere of ordinary humanities, she seemed as indifferent to my
gaze, as if she had been a dead corpse or a marble statue.
Elspat was above the middle stature. Her hair, now grizzled, was
still profuse, and it had been of the most decided black. So
were her eyes, in which, contradicting the stern and rigid
features of her countenance, there shone the wild and troubled
light that indicates an unsettled mind. Her hair was wrapt round
a silver bodkin with some attention to neatness, and her dark
mantle was disposed around her with a degree of taste, though the
materials were of the most ordinary sort.
After gazing on this victim of guilt and calamity till I was
ashamed to remain silent, though uncertain how I ought to address
her, I began to express my surprise at her choosing such a desert
and deplorable dwelling. She cut short these expressions of
sympathy, by answering in a stern voice, without the least change
of countenance or posture, "Daughter of the stranger, he has told
you my story." I was silenced at once, and felt how little all
earthly accommodation must seem to the mind which had such
subjects as hers for rumination. Without again attempting to
open the conversation, I took a piece of gold from my purse, (for
Donald had intimated she lived on alms), expecting she would at
least stretch her hand to receive it. But she neither accepted
nor rejected the gift; she did not even seem to notice it, though
twenty times as valuable, probably, as was usually offered. I
was obliged to place it on her knee, saying involuntarily, as I
did so, "May God pardon you and relieve you!" I shall never
forget the look which she cast up to Heaven, nor the tone in
which she exclaimed, in the very words of my old friend John
Home,--
"My beautiful--my brave!"
It was the language of nature, and arose from the heart of the
deprived mother, as it did from that gifted imaginative poet
while furnishing with appropriate expressions the ideal grief of
Lady Randolph.
CHAPTER II.
Oh, I'm come to the Low Country,
Och, och, ohonochie,
Without a penny in my pouch
To buy a meal for me.
I was the proudest of my clan,
Long, long may I repine;
And Donald was the bravest man,
And Donald he was mine. OLD SONG.
Elspat had enjoyed happy days, though her age had sunk into
hopeless and inconsolable sorrow and distress. She was once the
beautiful and happy wife of Hamish MacTavish, for whom his
strength and feats of prowess had gained the title of MacTavish
Mhor. His life was turbulent and dangerous, his habits being of
the old Highland stamp which esteemed it shame to want anything
that could be had for the taking. Those in the Lowland line who
lay near him, and desired to enjoy their lives and property in
quiet, were contented to pay him a small composition, in name of
protection money, and comforted themselves with the old proverb
that it was better to "fleech the deil than fight him." Others,
who accounted such composition dishonourable, were often
surprised by MacTavish Mhor and his associates and followers, who
usually inflicted an adequate penalty, either in person or
property, or both. The creagh is yet remembered in which he
swept one hundred and fifty cows from Monteith in one drove; and
how he placed the laird of Ballybught naked in a slough, for
having threatened to send for a party of the Highland Watch to
protect his property.
Whatever were occasionally the triumphs of this daring cateran,
they were often exchanged for reverses; and his narrow escapes,
rapid flights, and the ingenious stratagems with which he
extricated himself from imminent danger, were no less remembered
and admired than the exploits in which he had been successful.
In weal or woe, through every species of fatigue, difficulty, and
danger, Elspat was his faithful companion. She enjoyed with him
the fits of occasional prosperity; and when adversity pressed
them hard, her strength of mind, readiness of wit, and courageous
endurance of danger and toil, are said often to have stimulated
the exertions of her husband.
Their morality was of the old Highland cast--faithful friends and
fierce enemies. The Lowland herds and harvests they accounted
their own, whenever they had the means of driving off the one or
of seizing upon the other; nor did the least scruple on the right
of property interfere on such occasions. Hamish Mhor argued like
the old Cretan warrior:
"My sword, my spear, my shaggy shield,
They make me lord of all below;
For he who dreads the lance to wield,
Before my shaggy shield must bow.
His lands, his vineyards, must resign,
And all that cowards have is mine."
But those days of perilous, though frequently successful
depredation, began to be abridged after the failure of the
expedition of Prince Charles Edward. MacTavish Mhor had not sat
still on that occasion, and he was outlawed, both as a traitor to
the state and as a robber and cateran. Garrisons were now
settled in many places where a red-coat had never before been
seen, and the Saxon war-drum resounded among the most hidden
recesses of the Highland mountains. The fate of MacTavish became
every day more inevitable; and it was the more difficult for him
to make his exertions for defence or escape, that Elspat, amid
his evil days, had increased his family with an infant child,
which was a considerable encumbrance upon the necessary rapidity
of their motions.
At length the fatal day arrived. In a strong pass on the skirts
of Ben Crunchan, the celebrated MacTavish Mhor was surprised by a
detachment of the Sidier Roy. [The Red Soldier.] His wife
assisted him heroically, charging his piece from time to time;
and as they were in possession of a post that was nearly
unassailable, he might have perhaps escaped if his ammunition had
lasted. But at length his balls were expended, although it was
not until he had fired off most of the silver buttons from his
waistcoat; and the soldiers, no longer deterred by fear of the
unerring marksman, who had slain three and wounded more of their
number, approached his stronghold, and, unable to take him alive,
slew him after a most desperate resistance.
All this Elspat witnessed and survived; for she had, in the child
which relied on her for support, a motive for strength and
exertion. In what manner she maintained herself it is not easy
to say. Her only ostensible means of support were a flock of
three or four goats, which she fed wherever she pleased on the
mountain pastures, no one challenging the intrusion. In the
general distress of the country, her ancient acquaintances had
little to bestow; but what they could part with from their own
necessities, they willingly devoted to the relief of others, From
Lowlanders she sometimes demanded tribute, rather than requested
alms. She had not forgotten she was the widow of MacTavish Mhor,
or that the child who trotted by her knee might, such were her
imaginations, emulate one day the fame of his father, and command
the same influence which he had once exerted without control.
She associated so little with others, went so seldom and so
unwillingly from the wildest recesses of the mountains, where she
usually dwelt with her goats, that she was quite unconscious of
the great change which had taken place in the country around her
--the substitution of civil order for military violence, and the
strength gained by the law and its adherents over those who were
called in Gaelic song, "the stormy sons of the sword." Her own
diminished consequence and straitened circumstances she indeed
felt, but for this the death of MacTavish Mhor was, in her
apprehension, a sufficing reason; and she doubted not that she
should rise to her former state of importance when Hamish Bean
(or fair-haired James) should be able to wield the arms of his
father. If, then, Elspat was repelled, rudely when she demanded
anything necessary for her wants, or the accommodation of her
little flock, by a churlish farmer, her threats of vengeance,
obscurely expressed, yet terrible in their tenor, used frequently
to extort, through fear of her maledictions, the relief which was
denied to her necessities; and the trembling goodwife, who gave
meal or money to the widow of MacTavish Mhor, wished in her heart
that the stern old carlin had been burnt on the day her husband
had his due.
Years thus ran on, and Hamish Bean grew up--not, indeed, to be of
his father's size or strength, but to become an active, high-
spirited, fair-haired youth, with a ruddy cheek, an eye like an
eagle's, and all the agility, if not all the strength, of his
formidable father, upon whose history and achievements his mother
dwelt, in order to form her son's mind to a similar course of
adventures. But the young see the present state of this
changeful world more keenly than the old. Much attached to his
mother, and disposed to do all in his power for her support,
Hamish yet perceived, when he mixed with the world, that the
trade of the cateran was now alike dangerous and discreditable,
and that if he were to emulate his father's progress, it must be
in some other line of warfare more consonant to the opinions of
the present day.
As the faculties of mind and body began to expand, he became more
sensible of the precarious nature of his situation, of the
erroneous views of his mother, and her ignorance respecting the
changes of the society with which she mingled so little. In
visiting friends and neighbours, he became aware of the extremely
reduced scale to which his parent was limited, and learned that
she possessed little or nothing more than the absolute
necessaries of life, and that these were sometimes on the point
of failing. At times his success in fishing and the chase was
able to add something to her subsistence; but he saw no regular
means of contributing to her support, unless by stooping to
servile labour, which, if he himself could have endured it,
would, he knew, have been like a death's-wound to the pride of
his mother.
Elspat, meanwhile, saw with surprise that Hamish Bean, although
now tall and fit for the field, showed no disposition to enter on
his father's scene of action. There was something of the mother
at her heart, which prevented her from urging him in plain terms
to take the field as a cateran, for the fear occurred of the
perils into which the trade must conduct him; and when she would
have spoken to him on the subject, it seemed to her heated
imagination as if the ghost of her husband arose between them in
his bloody tartans, and laying his finger on his lips, appeared
to prohibit the topic. Yet she wondered at what seemed his want
of spirit, sighed as she saw him from day to day lounging about
in the long-skirted Lowland coat which the legislature had
imposed upon the Gael instead of their own romantic garb, and
thought how much nearer he would have resembled her husband had
he been clad in the belted plaid and short hose, with his
polished arms gleaming at his side.
Besides these subjects for anxiety, Elspat had others arising
from the engrossing impetuosity of her temper. Her love of
MacTavish Mhor had been qualified by respect and sometimes even
by fear, for the cateran was not the species of man who submits
to female government; but over his son she had exerted, at first
during childhood, and afterwards in early youth, an imperious
authority, which gave her maternal love a character of jealousy.
She could not bear when Hamish, with advancing life, made
repeated steps towards independence, absented himself from her
cottage at such season and for such length of time as he chose,
and seemed to consider, although maintaining towards her every
possible degree of respect and kindness, that the control and
responsibility of his actions rested on himself alone. This
would have been of little consequence, could she have concealed
her feelings within her own bosom; but the ardour and impatience
of her passions made her frequently show her son that she
conceived herself neglected and ill-used. When he was absent for
any length of time from her cottage without giving intimation of
his purpose, her resentment on his return used to be so
unreasonable, that it naturally suggested to a young man fond of
independence, and desirous to amend his situation in the world,
to leave her, even for the very purpose of enabling him to
provide for the parent whose egotistical demands on his filial
attention tended to confine him to a desert, in which both were
starving in hopeless and helpless indigence.
Upon one occasion, the son having been guilty of some independent
excursion, by which the mother felt herself affronted and
disobliged, she had been more than usually violent on his return,
and awakened in Hamish a sense of displeasure, which clouded his
brow and cheek. At length, as she persevered in her unreasonable
resentment, his patience became exhausted, and taking his gun
from the chimney corner, and muttering to himself the reply which
his respect for his mother prevented him from speaking aloud, he
was about to leave the hut which he had but barely entered.
"Hamish," said his mother, "are you again about to leave me?"
But Hamish only replied by looking at and rubbing the lock of his
gun.
"Ay, rub the lock of your gun," said his parent bitterly. "I am
glad you have courage enough to fire it? though it be but at a
roe-deer." Hamish started at this undeserved taunt, and cast a
look of anger at her in reply. She saw that she had found the
means of giving him pain.
"Yes," she said, "look fierce as you will at an old woman, and
your mother; it would be long ere you bent your brow on the angry
countenance of a bearded man."
"Be silent, mother, or speak of what you understand," said
Hamish, much irritated, "and that is of the distaff and the
spindle."
"And was it of spindle and distaff that I was thinking when I
bore you away on my back through the fire of six of the Saxon
soldiers, and you a wailing child? I tell you, Hamish, I know a
hundredfold more of swords and guns than ever you will; and you
will never learn so much of noble war by yourself, as you have
seen when you were wrapped up in my plaid."
"You are determined, at least, to allow me no peace at home,
mother; but this shall have an end," said Hamish, as, resuming
his purpose of leaving the hut, he rose and went towards the
door.
"Stay, I command you," said his mother--"stay! or may the gun
you carry be the means of your ruin! may the road you are going
be the track of your funeral!"
"What makes you use such words, mother?" said the young man,
turning a little back; "they are not good, and good cannot come
of them. Farewell just now! we are too angry to speak together
--farewell! It will be long ere you see me again." And he
departed, his mother, in the first burst of her impatience,
showering after him her maledictions, and in the next invoking
them on her own head, so that they might spare her son's. She
passed that day and the next in all the vehemence of impotent and
yet unrestrained passion, now entreating Heaven, and such powers
as were familiar to her by rude tradition, to restore her dear
son, "the calf of her heart;" now in impatient resentment,
meditating with what bitter terms she should rebuke his filial
disobedience upon his return, and now studying the most tender
language to attach him to the cottage, which, when her boy was
present, she would not, in the rapture of her affection, have
exchanged for the apartments of Taymouth Castle.
Two days passed, during which, neglecting even the slender means
of supporting nature which her situation afforded, nothing but
the strength of a frame accustomed to hardships and privations of
every kind could have kept her in existence, notwithstanding the
anguish of her mind prevented her being sensible of her personal
weakness. Her dwelling at this period was the same cottage near
which I had found her, but then more habitable by the exertions
of Hamish, by whom it had been in a great measure built and
repaired.
It was on the third day after her son had disappeared, as she sat
at the door rocking herself, after the fashion of her
countrywomen when in distress, or in pain, that the then unwonted
circumstance occurred of a passenger being seen on the highroad
above the cottage. She cast but one glance at him. He was on
horseback, so that it could not be Hamish; and Elspat cared not
enough for any other being on earth to make her turn her eyes
towards him a second time. The stranger, however, paused
opposite to her cottage, and dismounting from his pony, led it
down the steep and broken path which conducted to her door.
"God bless you, Elspat MacTavish!" She looked at the man as he
addressed her in her native language, with the displeased air of
one whose reverie is interrupted; but the traveller went on to
say, "I bring you tidings of your son Hamish." At once, from
being the most uninteresting object, in respect to Elspat, that
could exist, the form of the stranger became awful in her eyes,
as that of a messenger descended from heaven, expressly to
pronounce upon her death or life. She started from her seat, and
with hands convulsively clasped together, and held up to Heaven,
eyes fixed on the stranger's countenance, and person stooping
forward to him, she looked those inquiries which her faltering
tongue could not articulate. "Your son sends you his dutiful
remembrance, and this," said the messenger, putting into Elspat's
hand a small purse containing four or five dollars.
"He is gone! he is gone!" exclaimed Elspat; "he has sold
himself to be the servant of the Saxons, and I shall never more
behold him! Tell me, Miles MacPhadraick--for now I know you--is
it the price of the son's blood that you have put into the
mother's hand?"
"Now, God forbid!" answered MacPhadraick, who was a tacksman,
and had possession of a considerable tract of ground under his
chief, a proprietor who lived about twenty miles off--"God forbid
I should do wrong, or say wrong, to you, or to the son of
MacTavish Mhor! I swear to you by the hand of my chief that your
son is well, and will soon see you; and the rest he will tell you
himself." So saying, MacPhadraick hastened back up the pathway,
gained the road, mounted his pony, and rode upon his way.
CHAPTER III.
Elspat MacTavish remained gazing on the money as if the impress
of the coin could have conveyed information how it was procured.
"I love not this MacPhadraick," she said to herself. "It was his
race of whom the Bard hath spoken, saying, Fear them not when
their words are loud as the winter's wind, but fear them when
they fall on you like the sound of the thrush's song. And yet
this riddle can be read but one way: My son hath taken the sword
to win that, with strength like a man, which churls would keep
him from with the words that frighten children." This idea, when
once it occurred to her, seemed the more reasonable, that
MacPhadraick, as she well knew, himself a cautious man, had so
far encouraged her husband's practices as occasionally to buy
cattle of MacTavish, although he must have well known how they
were come by, taking care, however, that the transaction was so
made as to be accompanied with great profit and absolute safety.
Who so likely as MacPhadraick to indicate to a young cateran the
glen in which he could commence his perilous trade with most
prospect of success? Who so likely to convert his booty into
money? The feelings which another might have experienced on
believing that an only son had rushed forward on the same path in
which his father had perished, were scarce known to the Highland
mothers of that day. She thought of the death of MacTavish Mhor
as that of a hero who had fallen in his proper trade of war, and
who had not fallen unavenged. She feared less for her son's life
than for his dishonour. She dreaded, on his account, the
subjection to strangers, and the death-sleep of the soul which is
brought on by what she regarded as slavery.
The moral principle which so naturally and so justly occurs to
the mind of those who have been educated under a settled
government of laws that protect the property of the weak against
the incursions of the strong, was to poor Elspat a book sealed
and a fountain closed. She had been taught to consider those
whom they call Saxons as a race with whom the Gael were
constantly at war; and she regarded every settlement of theirs
within the reach of Highland incursion as affording a legitimate
object of attack and plunder. Her feelings on this point had
been strengthened and confirmed, not only by the desire of
revenge for the death of her husband, but by the sense of general
indignation entertained, not unjustly, through the Highlands of
Scotland, on account of the barbarous and violent conduct of the
victors after the battle of Culloden. Other Highland clans, too,
she regarded as the fair objects of plunder, when that was
possible, upon the score of ancient enmities and deadly feuds.
The prudence that might have weighed the slender means which the
times afforded for resisting the efforts of a combined
government, which had, in its less compact and established
authority, been unable to put down the ravages of such lawless
caterans as MacTavish Mhor, was unknown to a solitary woman whose
ideas still dwelt upon her own early times. She imagined that
her son had only to proclaim himself his father's successor in
adventure and enterprise, and that a force of men, as gallant as
those who had followed his father's banner, would crowd around to
support it when again displayed. To her Hamish was the eagle who
had only to soar aloft and resume his native place in the skies,
without her being able to comprehend how many additional eyes
would have watched his flight--how many additional bullets would
have been directed at his bosom. To be brief, Elspat was one who
viewed the present state of society with the same feelings with
which she regarded the times that had passed away. She had been
indigent, neglected, oppressed since the days that her husband
had no longer been feared and powerful, and she thought that the
term of her ascendence would return when her son had determined
to play the part of his father. If she permitted her eye to
glance farther into futurity, it was but to anticipate that she
must be for many a day cold in the grave, with the coronach of
her tribe cried duly over her, before her fair-haired Hamish
could, according to her calculation, die with his hand on the
basket-hilt of the red claymore. His father's hair was grey,
ere, after a hundred dangers, he had fallen with his arms in his
hands. That she should have seen and survived the sight was a
natural consequence of the manners of that age. And better it
was--such was her proud thought--that she had seen him so die,
than to have witnessed his departure from life in a smoky hovel
on a bed of rotten straw like an over-worn hound, or a bullock
which died of disease. But the hour of her young, her brave
Hamish, was yet far distant. He must succeed--he must conquer
--like his father. And when he fell at length--for she
anticipated for him no bloodless death--Elspat would ere then
have lain long in the grave, and could neither see his death-
struggle nor mourn over his grave-sod.
With such wild notions working in her brain, the spirit of Elspat
rose to its usual pitch, or, rather, to one which seemed higher.
In the emphatic language of Scripture, which in that idiom does
not greatly differ from her own, she arose, she washed and
changed her apparel, and ate bread, and was refreshed.
She longed eagerly for the return of her son, but she now longed
not with the bitter anxiety of doubt and apprehension. She said
to herself that much must be done ere he could in these times
arise to be an eminent and dreaded leader. Yet when she saw him
again, she almost expected him at the head of a daring band, with
pipes playing and banners flying, the noble tartans fluttering
free in the wind, in despite of the laws which had suppressed,
under severe penalties, the use of the national garb and all the
appurtenances of Highland chivalry. For all this, her eager
imagination was content only to allow the interval of some days.
From the moment this opinion had taken deep and serious
possession of her mind, her thoughts were bent upon receiving her
son at the head of his adherents in the manner in which she used
to adorn her hut for the return of his father.
The substantial means of subsistence she had not the power of
providing, nor did she consider that of importance. The
successful caterans would bring with them herds and flocks. But
the interior of her hut was arranged for their reception, the
usquebaugh was brewed or distilled in a larger quantity than it
could have been supposed one lone woman could have made ready.
Her hut was put into such order as might, in some degree, give it
the appearance of a day of rejoicing. It was swept and
decorated, with boughs of various kinds, like the house of a
Jewess upon what is termed the Feast of the Tabernacles. The
produce of the milk of her little flock was prepared in as great
variety of forms as her skill admitted, to entertain her son and
his associates whom she, expected to receive along with him.
But the principal decoration, which she sought with the greatest
toil, was the cloud-berry, a scarlet fruit, which is only found
on very high hills; and these only in small quantities. Her
husband, or perhaps one of his forefathers, had chosen this as
the emblem of his family, because it seemed at once to imply, by
its scarcity, the smallness of their clan, and, by the places in
which it was found, the ambitious height of their pretensions.
For the time that these simple preparations of welcome endured,
Elspat was in a state of troubled happiness. In fact, her only
anxiety was that she might be able to complete all that she could
do to welcome Hamish and the friends who she supposed must have
attached themselves to his band, before they should arrive and
find her unprovided for their reception.
But when such efforts as she could make had been accomplished,
she once more had nothing left to engage her save the trifling
care of her goats; and when these had been attended to, she had
only to review her little preparations, renew such as were of a
transitory nature, replace decayed branches and fading boughs,
and then to sit down at her cottage-door and watch the road as it
ascended on the one side from the banks of the Awe, and on the
other wound round the heights of the mountain, with such a degree
of accommodation to hill and level as the plan of the military
engineer permitted. While so occupied, her imagination,
anticipating the future from recollections of the past, formed
out of the morning mist or the evening cloud the wild forms of an
advancing band, which were then called "Sidier Dhu" (dark
soldiers), dressed in their native tartan, and so named to
distinguish them from the scarlet ranks of the British army. In
this occupation she spent many hours of each morning and evening.
CHAPTER IV.
It was in vain that Elspat's eyes surveyed the distant path by
the earliest light of the dawn and the latest glimmer of the
twilight. No rising dust awakened the expectation of nodding
plumes or flashing arms. The solitary traveller trudged
listlessly along in his brown lowland greatcoat, his tartans dyed
black or purple, to comply with or evade the law which prohibited
their being worn in their variegated hues. The spirit of the
Gael, sunk and broken by the severe though perhaps necessary
laws, that proscribed the dress and arms which he considered as
his birthright, was intimated by his drooping head and dejected
appearance. Not in such depressed wanderers did Elspat recognise
the light and free step of her son, now, as she concluded,
regenerated from every sign of Saxon thraldom. Night by night,
as darkness came, she removed from her unclosed door, to throw
herself on her restless pallet, not to sleep, but to watch. The
brave and the terrible, she said, walk by night. Their steps are
heard in darkness, when all is silent save the whirlwind and the
cataract. The timid deer comes only forth when the sun is upon
the mountain's peak, but the bold wolf walks in the red light of
the harvest-moon. She reasoned in vain; her son's expected
summons did not call her from the lowly couch where she lay
dreaming of his approach. Hamish came not.
"Hope deferred," saith the royal sage, "maketh the heart sick;"
and strong as was Elspat's constitution, she began to experience
that it was unequal to the toils to which her anxious and
immoderate affection subjected her, when early one morning the
appearance of a traveller on the lonely mountain-road, revived
hopes which had begun to sink into listless despair. There was
no sign of Saxon subjugation about the stranger. At a distance
she could see the flutter of the belted-plaid that drooped in
graceful folds behind him, and the plume that, placed in the
bonnet, showed rank and gentle birth. He carried a gun over his
shoulder, the claymore was swinging by his side with its usual
appendages, the dirk, the pistol, and the SPORRAN MOLLACH. [The
goat-skin pouch, worn by the Highlanders round their waist.] Ere
yet her eye had scanned all these particulars, the light step of
the traveller was hastened, his arm was waved in token of
recognition--a moment more, and Elspat held in her arms her
darling son, dressed in the garb of his ancestors, and looking,
in her maternal eyes, the fairest among ten thousand!
The first outpouring of affection it would be impossible to
describe. Blessings mingled with the most endearing epithets
which her energetic language affords in striving to express the
wild rapture of Elspat's joy. Her board was heaped hastily with
all she had to offer, and the mother watched the young soldier,
as he partook of the refreshment, with feelings how similar to,
yet how different from, those with which she had seen him draw
his first sustenance from her bosom!
When the tumult of joy was appeased, Elspat became anxious to
know her son's adventures since they parted, and could not help
greatly censuring his rashness for traversing the hills in the
Highland dress in the broad sunshine, when the penalty was so
heavy, and so many red soldiers were abroad in the country.
"Fear not for me, mother," said Hamish, in a tone designed to
relieve her anxiety, and yet somewhat embarrassed; "I may wear
the BREACAN [That which is variegated--that is, the tartan.] at
the gate of Fort-Augustus, if I like it."
"Oh, be not too daring, my beloved Hamish, though it be the fault
which best becomes thy father's son--yet be not too daring!
Alas! they fight not now as in former days, with fair weapons
and on equal terms, but take odds of numbers and of arms, so that
the feeble and the strong are alike levelled by the shot of a
boy. And do not think me unworthy to be called your father's
widow and your mother because I speak thus; for God knoweth,
that, man to man, I would peril thee against the best in
Breadalbane, and broad Lorn besides."
"I assure you, my dearest mother," replied Hamish, "that I am in
no danger. But have you seen MacPhadraick, mother? and what has
he said to you on my account?"
"Silver he left me in plenty, Hamish; but the best of his comfort
was that you were well, and would see me soon. But beware of
MacPhadraick, my son; for when he called himself the friend of
your father, he better loved the most worthless stirk in his herd
than he did the life-blood of MacTavish Mhor. Use his services,
therefore, and pay him for them, for it is thus we should deal
with the unworthy; but take my counsel, and trust him not."
Hamish could not suppress a sigh, which seemed to Elspat to
intimate that the caution came too late. "What have you done
with him?" she continued, eager and alarmed. "I had money of
him, and he gives not that without value; he is none of those who
exchange barley for chaff. Oh, if you repent you of your
bargain, and if it be one which you may break off without
disgrace to your truth or your manhood, take back his silver, and
trust not to his fair words."
"It may not be, mother," said Hamish; "I do not repent my
engagement, unless that it must make me leave you soon."
"Leave me! how leave me? Silly boy, think you I know not what
duty belongs to the wife or mother of a daring man? Thou art but
a boy yet; and when thy father had been the dread of the country
for twenty years, he did not despise my company and assistance,
but often said my help was worth that of two strong gillies."
"It is not on that score, mother, but since I must leave the
country--"
"Leave the country!" replied his mother, interrupting him. "And
think you that I am like a bush, that is rooted to the soil where
it grows, and must die if carried elsewhere? I have breathed
other winds than these of Ben Cruachan. I have followed your
father to the wilds of Ross and the impenetrable deserts of Y Mac
Y Mhor. Tush, man! my limbs, old as they are, will bear me as
far as your young feet can trace the way."
"Alas, mother," said the young man, with a faltering accent, "but
to cross the sea--"
"The sea! who am I that I should fear the sea? Have I never
been in a birling in my life--never known the Sound of Mull, the
Isles of Treshornish, and the rough rocks of Harris?"
"Alas, mother, I go far--far from all of these. I am enlisted in
one of the new regiments, and we go against the French in
America."
"Enlisted!" uttered the astonished mother--"against MY will--
without MY consent! You could not! you would not!" Then rising
up, and assuming a posture of almost imperial command, "Hamish,
you DARED not!"
"Despair, mother, dares everything," answered Hamish, in a tone
of melancholy resolution. "What should I do here, where I can
scarce get bread for myself and you, and when the times are
growing daily worse? Would you but sit down and listen, I would
convince you I have acted for the best."
With a bitter smile Elspat sat down, and the same severe ironical
expression was on her features, as, with her lips firmly closed,
she listened to his vindication.
Hamish went on, without being disconcerted by her expected
displeasure. "When I left you, dearest mother, it was to go to
MacPhadraick's house; for although I knew he is crafty and
worldly, after the fashion of the Sassenach, yet he is wise, and
I thought how he would teach me, as it would cost him nothing, in
which way I could mend our estate in the world."
"Our estate in the world!" said Elspat, losing patience at the
word; "and went you to a base fellow with a soul no better than
that of a cowherd, to ask counsel about your conduct? Your
father asked none, save of his courage and his sword."
"Dearest mother," answered Hamish, "how shall I convince you that
you live in this land of our fathers as if our fathers were yet
living? You walk as it were in a dream, surrounded by the
phantoms of those who have been long with the dead. When my
father lived and fought, the great respected the man of the
strong right hand, and the rich feared him. He had protection
from Macallum Mhor, and from Caberfae, and tribute from meaner
men. [Caberfae--ANGLICE, the Stag's-head, the Celtic designation
for the arms of the family of the high Chief of Seaforth.] That
is ended, and his son would only earn a disgraceful and unpitied
death by the practices which gave his father credit and power
among those who wear the breacan. The land is conquered; its
lights are quenched--Glengarry, Lochiel, Perth, Lord Lewis, all
the high chiefs are dead or in exile. We may mourn for it, but
we cannot help it. Bonnet, broadsword, and sporran--power,
strength, and wealth, were all lost on Drummossie Muir."
"It is false!" said Elspat, fiercely; "you and such like
dastardly spirits are quelled by your own faint hearts, not by
the strength of the enemy; you are like the fearful waterfowl, to
whom the least cloud in the sky seems the shadow of the eagle."
"Mother," said Hamish proudly, "lay not faint heart to my charge.
I go where men are wanted who have strong arms and bold hearts
too. I leave a desert, for a land where I may gather fame."
"And you leave your mother to perish in want, age, and solitude,"
said Elspat, essaying successively every means of moving a
resolution which she began to see was more deeply rooted than she
had at first thought.
"Not so, neither," he answered; "I leave you to comfort and
certainty, which you have yet never known. Barcaldine's son is
made a leader, and with him I have enrolled myself. MacPhadraick
acts for him, and raises men, and finds his own in doing it."
"That is the truest word of the tale, were all the rest as false
as hell," said the old woman, bitterly.
"But we are to find our good in it also," continued Hamish; "for
Barcaldine is to give you a shieling in his wood of Letter-
findreight, with grass for your goats, and a cow, when you please
to have one, on the common; and my own pay, dearest mother,
though I am far away, will do more than provide you with meal,
and with all else you can want. Do not fear for me. I enter a
private gentleman; but I will return, if hard fighting and
regular duty can deserve it, an officer, and with half a dollar a
day."
"Poor child!" replied Elspat, in a tone of pity mingled with
contempt, "and you trust MacPhadraick?"
"I might mother," said Hamish, the dark red colour of his race
crossing his forehead and cheeks, "for MacPhadraick knows the
blood which flows in my veins, and is aware, that should he break
trust with you, he might count the days which could bring Hamish
back to Breadalbane, and number those of his life within three
suns more. I would kill him at his own hearth, did he break his
word with me--I would, by the great Being who made us both!"
The look and attitude of the young soldier for a moment overawed
Elspat; she was unused to see him express a deep and bitter mood,
which reminded her so strongly of his father. But she resumed
her remonstrances in the same taunting manner in which she had
commenced them.
"Poor boy!" she said; "and you think that at the distance of
half the world your threats will be heard or thought of! But,
go--go--place your neck under him of Hanover's yoke, against whom
every true Gael fought to the death. Go, disown the royal
Stewart, for whom your father, and his fathers, and your mother's
fathers, have crimsoned many a field with their blood. Go, put
your head under the belt of one of the race of Dermid, whose
children murdered--Yes," she added, with a wild shriek, "murdered
your mother's fathers in their peaceful dwellings in Glencoe!
Yes," she again exclaimed, with a wilder and shriller scream, "I
was then unborn, but my mother has told me--and I attended to the
voice of MY mother--well I remember her words! They came in
peace, and were received in friendship--and blood and fire arose,
and screams and murder!" [See Note 9.--Massacre of Glencoe.]
"Mother," answered Hamish, mournfully, but with a decided tone,
"all that I have thought over. There is not a drop of the blood
of Glencoe on the noble hand of Barcaldine; with the unhappy
house of Glenlyon the curse remains, and on them God hath avenged
it."
"You speak like the Saxon priest already," replied his mother;
"will you not better stay, and ask a kirk from Macallum Mhor,
that you may preach forgiveness to the race of Dermid?"
"Yesterday was yesterday," answered Hamish, "and to-day is to-
day. When the clans are crushed and confounded together, it is
well and wise that their hatreds and their feuds should not
survive their independence and their power. He that cannot
execute vengeance like a man, should not harbour useless enmity
like a craven. Mother, young Barcaldine is true and brave. I
know that MacPhadraick counselled him that he should not let me
take leave of you, lest you dissuaded me from my purpose; but he
said, 'Hamish MacTavish is the son of a brave man, and he will
not break his word.' Mother, Barcaldine leads an hundred of the
bravest of the sons of the Gael in their native dress, and with
their fathers' arms--heart to heart--shoulder to shoulder. I
have sworn to go with him. He has trusted me, and I will trust
him."
At this reply, so firmly and resolvedly pronounced, Elspat
remained like one thunderstruck, and sunk in despair. The
arguments which she had considered so irresistibly conclusive,
had recoiled like a wave from a rock. After a long pause, she
filled her son's quaigh, and presented it to him with an air of
dejected deference and submission.
"Drink," she said, "to thy father's roof-tree, ere you leave it
for ever; and tell me--since the chains of a new King, and of a
new chief, whom your fathers knew not save as mortal enemies, are
fastened upon the limbs of your father's son--tell me how many
links you count upon them?"
Hamish took the cup, but looked at her as if uncertain of her
meaning. She proceeded in a raised voice. "Tell me," she said,
"for I have a right to know, for how many days the will of those
you have made your masters permits me to look upon you? In other
words, how many are the days of my life? for when you leave me,
the earth has nought besides worth living for!"
"Mother," replied Hamish MacTavish, "for six days I may remain
with you; and if you will set out with me on the fifth, I will
conduct you in safety to your new dwelling. But if you remain
here, then I will depart on the seventh by daybreak--then, as at
the last moment, I MUST set out for Dunbarton, for if I appear
not on the eighth day, I am subject to punishment as a deserter,
and am dishonoured as a soldier and a gentleman."
"Your father's foot," she answered, "was free as the wind on the
heath--it were as vain to say to him, where goest thou? as to
ask that viewless driver of the clouds, wherefore blowest thou?
Tell me under what penalty thou must--since go thou must, and go
thou wilt--return to thy thraldom?"
"Call it not thraldom, mother; it is the service of an honourable
soldier--the only service which is now open to the son of
MacTavish Mhor."
"Yet say what is the penalty if thou shouldst not return?"
replied Elspat.
"Military punishment as a deserter," answered Hamish, writhing,
however, as his mother failed not to observe, under some internal
feelings, which she resolved to probe to the uttermost.
"And that," she said, with assumed calmness, which her glancing
eye disowned, "is the punishment of a disobedient hound, is it
not?"
"Ask me no more, mother," said Hamish; "the punishment is nothing
to one who will never deserve it."
"To me it is something," replied Elspat, "since I know better
than thou, that where there is power to inflict, there is often
the will to do so without cause. I would pray for thee, Hamish,
and I must know against what evils I should beseech Him who
leaves none unguarded, to protect thy youth and simplicity."
"Mother," said Hamish, "it signifies little to what a criminal
may be exposed, if a man is determined not to be such. Our
Highland chiefs used also to punish their vassals, and, as I have
heard, severely. Was it not Lachlan MacIan, whom we remember of
old, whose head was struck off by order of his chieftain for
shooting at the stag before him?"
"Ay," said Elspat, "and right he had to lose it, since he
dishonoured the father of the people even in the face of the
assembled clan. But the chiefs were noble in their ire; they
punished with the sharp blade, and not with the baton. Their
punishments drew blood, but they did not infer dishonour. Canst
thou say, the same for the laws under whose yoke thou hast placed
thy freeborn neck?"
"I cannot, mother--I cannot," said Hamish mournfully. "I saw
them punish a Sassenach for deserting as they called it, his
banner. He was scourged--I own it--scourged like a hound who has
offended an imperious master. I was sick at the sight--I confess
it. But the punishment of dogs is only for those worse than
dogs, who know not how to keep their faith."
"To this infamy, however, thou hast subjected thyself, Hamish,"
replied Elspat, "if thou shouldst give, or thy officers take,
measure of offence against thee. I speak no more to thee on thy
purpose. Were the sixth day from this morning's sun my dying
day, and thou wert to stay to close mine eyes, thou wouldst run
the risk of being lashed like a dog at a post--yes! unless thou
hadst the gallant heart to leave me to die alone, and upon my
desolate hearth, the last spark of thy father's fire, and of thy
forsaken mother's life, to be extinguished together!"--Hamish
traversed the hut with an impatient and angry pace.
"Mother," he said at length, "concern not yourself about such
things. I cannot be subjected to such infamy, for never will I
deserve it; and were I threatened with it, I should know how to
die before I was so far dishonoured."
"There spoke the son of the husband of my heart!" replied
Elspat, and she changed the discourse, and seemed to listen in
melancholy acquiescence, when her son reminded her how short the
time was which they were permitted to pass in each other's
society, and entreated that it might be spent without useless and
unpleasant recollections respecting the circumstances under which
they must soon be separated.
Elspat was now satisfied that her son, with some of his father's
other properties, preserved the haughty masculine spirit which
rendered it impossible to divert him from a resolution which he
had deliberately adopted. She assumed, therefore, an exterior of
apparent submission to their inevitable separation; and if she
now and then broke out into complaints and murmurs, it was either
that she could not altogether suppress the natural impetuosity of
her temper, or because she had the wit to consider that a total
and unreserved acquiescence might have seemed to her son
constrained and suspicious, and induced him to watch and defeat
the means by which she still hoped to prevent his leaving her.
Her ardent though selfish affection for her son, incapable of
being qualified by a regard for the true interests of the
unfortunate object of her attachment, resembled the instinctive
fondness of the animal race for their offspring; and diving
little farther into futurity than one of the inferior creatures,
she only felt that to be separated from Hamish was to die.
In the brief interval permitted them, Elspat exhausted every art
which affection could devise, to render agreeable to him the
space which they were apparently to spend with each other. Her
memory carried her far back into former days, and her stores of
legendary history, which furnish at all times a principal
amusement of the Highlander in his moments of repose, were
augmented by an unusual acquaintance with the songs of ancient
bards, and traditions of the most approved seannachies and
tellers of tales. Her officious attentions to her son's
accommodation, indeed, were so unremitted as almost to give him
pain, and he endeavoured quietly to prevent her from taking so
much personal toil in selecting the blooming heath for his bed,
or preparing the meal for his refreshment. "Let me alone,
Hamish," she would reply on such occasions; "you follow your own
will in departing from your mother, let your mother have hers in
doing what gives her pleasure while you remain."
So much she seemed to be reconciled to the arrangements which he
had made in her behalf, that she could hear him speak to her of
her removing to the lands of Green Colin, as the gentleman was
called, on whose estate he had provided her an asylum. In truth,
however, nothing could be farther from her thoughts. From what
he had said during their first violent dispute, Elspat had
gathered that, if Hamish returned not by the appointed time
permitted by his furlough, he would incur the hazard of corporal
punishment. Were he placed within the risk of being thus
dishonoured, she was well aware that he would never submit to the
disgrace by a return to the regiment where it might be inflicted.
Whether she looked to any farther probable consequences of her
unhappy scheme cannot be known; but the partner of MacTavish
Mhor, in all his perils and wanderings, was familiar with an
hundred instances of resistance or escape, by which one brave
man, amidst a land of rocks, lakes, and mountains, dangerous
passes, and dark forests, might baffle the pursuit of hundreds.
For the future, therefore, she feared nothing; her sole
engrossing object was to prevent her son from keeping his word
with his commanding officer.
With this secret purpose, she evaded the proposal which Hamish
repeatedly made, that they should set out together to take
possession of her new abode; and she resisted it upon grounds
apparently so natural to her character that her son was neither
alarmed nor displeased. "Let me not," she said, "in the same
short week, bid farewell to my only son, and to the glen in which
I have so long dwelt. Let my eye, when dimmed with weeping for
thee, still look around, for a while at least, upon Loch Awe and
on Ben Cruachan."
Hamish yielded the more willingly to his mother's humour in this
particular, that one or two persons who resided in a neighbouring
glen, and had given their sons to Barcaldine's levy, were also to
be provided for on the estate of the chieftain, and it was
apparently settled that Elspat was to take her journey along with
them when they should remove to their new residence. Thus,
Hamish believed that he had at once indulged his mother's humour,
and ensured her safety and accommodation. But she nourished in
her mind very different thoughts and projects.
The period of Hamish's leave of absence was fast approaching, and
more than once he proposed to depart, in such time as to ensure
his gaining easily and early Dunbarton, the town where were the
head-quarters of his regiment. But still his mother's
entreaties, his own natural disposition to linger among scenes
long dear to him, and, above all, his firm reliance in his speed
and activity, induced him to protract his departure till the
sixth day, being the very last which he could possibly afford to
spend with his mother, if indeed he meant to comply with the
conditions of his furlough.
CHAPTER V.
But for your son, believe it--oh, believe it--
Most dangerously you have with him prevailed,
If not most mortal to him. CORIOLANUS.
On the evening which preceded his proposed departure, Hamish
walked down to the river with his fishing-rod, to practise in the
Awe, for the last time, a sport in which he excelled, and to
find, at the same time, the means for making one social meal with
his mother on something better than their ordinary cheer. He was
as successful as usual, and soon killed a fine salmon. On his
return homeward an incident befell him, which he afterwards
related as ominous, though probably his heated imagination,
joined to the universal turn of his countrymen for the
marvellous, exaggerated into superstitious importance some very
ordinary and accidental circumstance.
In the path which he pursued homeward, he was surprised to
observe a person, who, like himself, was dressed and armed after
the old Highland fashion. The first idea that struck him was,
that the passenger belonged to his own corps, who, levied by
government, and bearing arms under royal authority, were not
amenable for breach of the statutes against the use of the
Highland garb or weapons. But he was struck on perceiving, as he
mended his pace to make up to his supposed comrade, meaning to
request his company for the next day's journey, that the stranger
wore a white cockade, the fatal badge which was proscribed in the
Highlands. The stature of the man was tall, and there was
something shadowy in the outline, which added to his size; and
his mode of motion, which rather resembled gliding than walking,
impressed Hamish with superstitious fears concerning the
character of the being which thus passed before him in the
twilight. He no longer strove to make up to the stranger, but
contented himself with keeping him in view, under the
superstition common to the Highlanders, that you ought neither to
intrude yourself on such supernatural apparitions as you may
witness, nor avoid their presence, but leave it to themselves to
withhold or extend their communication, as their power may
permit, or the purpose of their commission require.
Upon an elevated knoll by the side of the road, just where the
pathway turned down to Elspat's hut, the stranger made a pause,
and seemed to await Hamish's coming up. Hamish, on his part,
seeing it was necessary he should pass the object of his
suspicion, mustered up his courage, and approached the spot where
the stranger had placed himself; who first pointed to Elspat's
hut, and made, with arm and head, a gesture prohibiting Hamish to
approach it, then stretched his hand to the road which led to the
southward, with a motion which seemed to enjoin his instant
departure in that direction. In a moment afterwards the plaided
form was gone--Hamish did not exactly say vanished, because there
were rocks and stunted trees enough to have concealed him; but it
was his own opinion that he had seen the spirit of MacTavish
Mhor, warning him to commence his instant journey to Dunbarton,
without waiting till morning, or again visiting his mother's hut.
In fact, so many accidents might arise to delay his journey,
especially where there were many ferries, that it became his
settled purpose, though he could not depart without bidding his
mother adieu, that he neither could nor would abide longer than
for that object; and that the first glimpse of next day's sun
should see him many miles advanced towards Dunbarton. He
descended the path, therefore, and entering the cottage, he
communicated, in a hasty and troubled voice, which indicated
mental agitation, his determination to take his instant
departure. Somewhat to his surprise, Elspat appeared not to
combat his purpose, but she urged him to take some refreshment
ere he left her for ever. He did so hastily, and in silence,
thinking on the approaching separation, and scarce yet believing
it would take place without a final struggle with his mother's
fondness. To his surprise, she filled the quaigh with liquor for
his parting cup.
"Go," she said, "my son, since such is thy settled purpose; but
first stand once more on thy mother's hearth, the flame on which
will be extinguished long ere thy foot shall again be placed
there."
"To your health, mother!" said Hamish; "and may we meet again in
happiness, in spite of your ominous words."
"It were better not to part," said his mother, watching him as he
quaffed the liquor, of which he would have held it ominous to
have left a drop.
"And now," she said, muttering the words to herself, "go--if thou
canst go."
"Mother," said Hamish, as he replaced on the table the empty
quaigh, "thy drink is pleasant to the taste, but it takes away
the strength which it ought to give."
"Such is its first effect, my son," replied Elspat. "But lie
down upon that soft heather couch, shut your eyes but for a
moment, and, in the sleep of an hour, you shall have more
refreshment than in the ordinary repose of three whole nights,
could they be blended into one."
"Mother," said Hamish, upon whose brain the potion was now taking
rapid effect, "give me my bonnet--I must kiss you and begone--yet
it seems as if my feet were nailed to the floor."
"Indeed," said his mother, "you will be instantly well, if you
will sit down for half an hour--but half an hour. It is eight
hours to dawn, and dawn were time enough for your father's son to
begin such a journey."
"I must obey you, mother--I feel I must," said Hamish
inarticulately; "but call me when the moon rises."
He sat down on the bed, reclined back, and almost instantly was
fast asleep. With the throbbing glee of one who has brought to
an end a difficult and troublesome enterprise, Elspat proceeded
tenderly to arrange the plaid of the unconscious slumberer, to
whom her extravagant affection was doomed to be so fatal,
expressing, while busied in her office, her delight, in tones of
mingled tenderness and triumph. "Yes," she said, "calf of my
heart, the moon shall arise and set to thee, and so shall the
sun; but not to light thee from the land of thy fathers, or tempt
thee to serve the foreign prince or the feudal enemy! To no son
of Dermid shall I be delivered, to be fed like a bondswoman; but
he who is my pleasure and my pride shall be my guard and my
protector. They say the Highlands are changed; but I see Ben
Cruachan rear his crest as high as ever into the evening sky; no
one hath yet herded his kine on the depths of Loch Awe; and
yonder oak does not yet bend like a willow. The children of the
mountains will be such as their fathers, until the mountains
themselves shall be levelled with the strath. In these wild
forests, which used to support thousands of the brave, there is
still surely subsistence and refuge left for one aged woman, and
one gallant youth of the ancient race and the ancient manners."
While the misjudging mother thus exulted in the success of her
stratagem, we may mention to the reader that it was founded on
the acquaintance with drugs and simples which Elspat,
accomplished in all things belonging to the wild life which she
had led, possessed in an uncommon degree, and which she exercised
for various purposes. With the herbs, which she knew how to
select as well as how to distil, she could relieve more diseases
than a regular medical person could easily believe. She applied
some to dye the bright colours of the tartan; from others she
compounded draughts of various powers, and unhappily possessed
the secret of one which was strongly soporific. Upon the effects
of this last concoction, as the reader doubtless has anticipated,
she reckoned with security on delaying Hamish beyond the period
for which his return was appointed; and she trusted to his horror
for the apprehended punishment to which he was thus rendered
liable, to prevent him from returning at all.
Sound and deep, beyond natural rest, was the sleep of Hamish
MacTavish on that eventful evening, but not such the repose of
his mother. Scarce did she close her eyes from time to time, but
she awakened again with a start, in the terror that her son had
arisen and departed; and it was only on approaching his couch,
and hearing his deep-drawn and regular breathing, that she
reassured herself of the security of the repose in which he was
plunged.
Still, dawning, she feared, might awaken him, notwithstanding the
unusual strength of the potion with which she had drugged his
cup. If there remained a hope of mortal man accomplishing the
journey, she was aware that Hamish would attempt it, though he
were to die from fatigue upon the road. Animated by this new
fear, she studied to exclude the light, by stopping all the
crannies and crevices through which, rather than through any
regular entrance, the morning beams might find access to her
miserable dwelling; and this in order to detain amid its wants
and wretchedness the being on whom, if the world itself had been
at her disposal, she would have joyfully conferred it.
Her pains were bestowed unnecessarily. The sun rose high above
the heavens, and not the fleetest stag in Breadalbane, were the
hounds at his heels, could have sped, to save his life, so fast
as would have been necessary to keep Hamish's appointment. Her
purpose was fully attained--her son's return within the period
assigned was impossible. She deemed it equally impossible, that
he would ever dream of returning, standing, as he must now do, in
the danger of an infamous punishment. By degrees, and at
different times, she had gained from him a full acquaintance with
the predicament in which he would be placed by failing to appear
on the day appointed, and the very small hope he could entertain
of being treated with lenity.
It is well known, that the great and wise Earl of Chatham prided
himself on the scheme, by which he drew together for the defence
of the colonies those hardy Highlanders, who, until his time, had
been the objects of doubt, fear, and suspicion, on the part of
each successive administration. But some obstacles occurred,
from the peculiar habits and temper of this people, to the
execution of his patriotic project. By nature and habit, every
Highlander was accustomed to the use of arms, but at the same
time totally unaccustomed to, and impatient of, the restraints
imposed by discipline upon regular troops. They were a species
of militia, who had no conception of a camp as their only home.
If a battle was lost, they dispersed to save themselves, and look
out for the safety of their families; if won, they went back to
their glens to hoard up their booty, and attend to their cattle
and their farms. This privilege of going and coming at pleasure,
they would not be deprived of even by their chiefs, whose
authority was in most other respects so despotic. It followed as
a matter of course, that the new-levied Highland recruits could
scarce be made to comprehend the nature of a military engagement,
which compelled a man to serve in the army longer than he
pleased; and perhaps, in many instances, sufficient care was not
taken at enlisting to explain to them the permanency of the
engagement which they came under, lest such a disclosure should
induce them to change their mind. Desertions were therefore
become numerous from the newly-raised regiment, and the veteran
general who commanded at Dunbarton saw no better way of checking
them than by causing an unusually severe example to be made of a
deserter from an English corps. The young Highland regiment was
obliged to attend upon the punishment, which struck a people,
peculiarly jealous of personal honour, with equal horror and
disgust, and not unnaturally indisposed some of them to the
service. The old general, however, who had been regularly bred
in the German wars, stuck to his own opinion, and gave out in
orders that the first Highlander who might either desert, or fail
to appear at the expiry of his furlough, should be brought to the
halberds, and punished like the culprit whom they had seen in
that condition. No man doubted that General -- would keep his
word rigorously whenever severity was required, and Elspat,
therefore, knew that her son, when he perceived that due
compliance with his orders was impossible, must at the same time
consider the degrading punishment denounced against his defection
as inevitable, should he place himself within the general's
power. [See Note 10.--Fidelity of the Highlanders.]
When noon was well passed, new apprehensions came on the mind of
the lonely woman. Her son still slept under the influence of the
draught; but what if, being stronger than she had ever known it
administered, his health or his reason should be affected by its
potency? For the first time, likewise, notwithstanding her high
ideas on the subject of parental authority, she began to dread
the resentment of her son, whom her heart told her she had
wronged. Of late, she had observed that his temper was less
docile, and his determinations, especially upon this late
occasion of his enlistment, independently formed, and then boldly
carried through. She remembered the stern wilfulness of his
father when he accounted himself ill-used, and began to dread
that Hamish, upon finding the deceit she had put upon him, might
resent it even to the extent of cutting her off, and pursuing his
own course through the world alone. Such were the alarming and
yet the reasonable apprehensions which began to crowd upon the
unfortunate woman, after the apparent success of her ill-advised
stratagem.
It was near evening when Hamish first awoke, and then he was far
from being in the full possession either of his mental or bodily
powers. From his vague expressions and disordered pulse, Elspat
at first experienced much apprehension; but she used such
expedients as her medical knowledge suggested, and in the course
of the night she had the satisfaction to see him sink once more
into a deep sleep, which probably carried off the greater part of
the effects of the drug, for about sunrising she heard him arise,
and call to her for his bonnet. This she had purposely removed,
from a fear that he might awaken and depart in the night-time,
without her knowledge.
"My bonnet--my bonnet," cried Hamish; "it is time to take
farewell. Mother, your drink was too strong--the sun is up--but
with the next morning I will still see the double summit of the
ancient Dun. My bonnet--my bonnet, mother; I must be instant in
my departure." These expressions made it plain that poor Hamish
was unconscious that two nights and a day had passed since he had
drained the fatal quaigh, and Elspat had now to venture on what
she felt as the almost perilous, as well as painful, task of
explaining her machinations.
"Forgive me, my son," she said, approaching Hamish, and taking
him by the hand with an air of deferential awe, which perhaps she
had not always used to his father, even when in his moody fits.
"Forgive you, mother!--for what?" said Hamish, laughing; "for
giving me a dram that was too strong, and which my head still
feels this morning, or for hiding my bonnet to keep me an instant
longer? Nay, do YOU forgive ME. Give me the bonnet, and let
that be done which now must be done. Give me my bonnet, or I go
without it; surely I am not to be delayed by so trifling a want
as that--I, who have gone for years with only a strap of deer's
hide to tie back my hair. Trifle not, but give it me, or I must
go bareheaded, since to stay is impossible."
"My son," said Elspat, keeping fast hold of his hand, "what is
done cannot be recalled. Could you borrow the wings of yonder
eagle, you would arrive at the Dun too late for what you purpose
--too soon for what awaits you there. You believe you see the
sun rising for the first time since you have seen him set; but
yesterday beheld him climb Ben Cruachan, though your eyes were
closed to his light."
Hamish cast upon his mother a wild glance of extreme terror, then
instantly recovering himself, said, "I am no child to be cheated
out of my purpose by such tricks as these. Farewell, mother!
each moment is worth a lifetime."
"Stay," she said, "my dear, my deceived son, run not on infamy
and ruin. Yonder I see the priest upon the high-road on his
white horse. Ask him the day of the month and week; let him
decide between us."
With the speed of an eagle, Hamish darted up the acclivity, and
stood by the minister of Glenorquhy, who was pacing out thus
early to administer consolation to a distressed family near
Bunawe.
The good man was somewhat startled to behold an armed Highlander,
then so unusual a sight, and apparently much agitated, stop his
horse by the bridle, and ask him with a faltering voice the day
of the week and month. "Had you been where you should have been
yesterday, young man," replied the clergyman, "you would have
known that it was God's Sabbath; and that this is Monday, the
second day of the week, and twenty-first of the month."
"And this is true?" said Hamish.
"As true," answered the surprised minister, "as that I yesterday
preached the word of God to this parish. What ails you, young
man?--are you sick?--are you in your right mind?"
Hamish made no answer, only repeated to himself the first
expression of the clergyman, "Had you been where you should have
been yesterday;" and so saying, he let go the bridle, turned from
the road, and descended the path towards the hut, with the look
and pace of one who was going to execution. The minister looked
after him with surprise; but although he knew the inhabitant of
the hovel, the character of Elspat had not invited him to open
any communication with her, because she was generally reputed a
Papist, or rather one indifferent to all religion, except some
superstitious observances which had been handed down from her
parents. On Hamish the Reverend Mr. Tyrie had bestowed
instructions when he was occasionally thrown in his way; and if
the seed fell among the brambles and thorns of a wild and
uncultivated disposition, it had not yet been entirely checked or
destroyed. There was something so ghastly in the present
expression of the youth's features that the good man was tempted
to go down to the hovel, and inquire whether any distress had
befallen the inhabitants, in which his presence might be
consoling and his ministry useful. Unhappily he did not
persevere in this resolution, which might have saved a great
misfortune, as he would have probably become a mediator for the
unfortunate young man; but a recollection of the wild moods of
such Highlanders as had been educated after the old fashion of
the country, prevented his interesting himself in the widow and
son of the far-dreaded robber, MacTavish Mhor, and he thus missed
an opportunity, which he afterwards sorely repented, of doing
much good.
When Hamish MacTavish entered his mother's hut, it was only to
throw himself on the bed he had left, and exclaiming, "Undone,
undone!" to give vent, in cries of grief and anger, to his deep
sense of the deceit which had been practised on him, and of the
cruel predicament to which he was reduced.
Elspat was prepared for the first explosion of her son's passion,
and said to herself, "It is but the mountain torrent, swelled by
the thunder shower. Let us sit and rest us by the bank; for all
its present tumult, the time will soon come when we may pass it
dryshod." She suffered his complaints and his reproaches, which
were, even in the midst of his agony, respectful and
affectionate, to die away without returning any answer; and when,
at length, having exhausted all the exclamations of sorrow which
his language, copious in expressing the feelings of the heart,
affords to the sufferer, he sunk into a gloomy silence, she
suffered the interval to continue near an hour ere she approached
her son's couch.
"And now," she said at length, with a voice in which the
authority of the mother was qualified by her tenderness, "have
you exhausted your idle sorrows, and are you able to place what
you have gained against what you have lost? Is the false son of
Dermid your brother, or the father of your tribe, that you weep
because you cannot bind yourself to his belt, and become one of
those who must do his bidding? Could you find in yonder distant
country the lakes and the mountains that you leave behind you
here? Can you hunt the deer of Breadalbane in the forests of
America, or will the ocean afford you the silver-scaled salmon of
the Awe? Consider, then, what is your loss, and, like a wise
man, set it against what you have won."
"I have lost all, mother," replied Hamish, "since I have broken
my word, and lost my honour. I might tell my tale, but who, oh,
who would believe me?" The unfortunate young man again clasped
his hands together, and, pressing them to his forehead, hid his
face upon the bed.
Elspat was now really alarmed, and perhaps wished the fatal
deceit had been left unattempted. She had no hope or refuge
saving in the eloquence of persuasion, of which she possessed no
small share, though her total ignorance of the world as it
actually existed rendered its energy unavailing. She urged her
son, by every tender epithet which a parent could bestow, to take
care for his own safety.
"Leave me," she said, "to baffle your pursuers. I will save your
life--I will save your honour. I will tell them that my fair-
haired Hamish fell from the Corrie Dhu (black precipice) into the
gulf, of which human eye never beheld the bottom. I will tell
them this, and I will fling your plaid on the thorns which grow
on the brink of the precipice, that they may believe my words.
They will believe, and they will return to the Dun of the double-
crest; for though the Saxon drum can call the living to die, it
cannot recall the dead to their slavish standard. Then will we
travel together far northward to the salt lakes of Kintail, and
place glens and mountains betwixt us and the sons of Dermid. We
will visit the shores of the dark lake; and my kinsmen--for was
not my mother of the children of Kenneth, and will they not
remember us with the old love?--my kinsmen will receive us with
the affection of the olden time, which lives in those distant
glens, where the Gael still dwell in their nobleness, unmingled
with the churl Saxons, or with the base brood that are their
tools and their slaves."
The energy of the language, somewhat allied to hyperbole, even in
its most ordinary expressions, now seemed almost too weak to
afford Elspat the means of bringing out the splendid picture
which she presented to her son of the land in which she proposed
to him to take refuge. Yet the colours were few with which she
could paint her Highland paradise. "The hills," she said, "were
higher and more magnificent than those of Breadalbane--Ben
Cruachan was but a dwarf to Skooroora. The lakes were broader
and larger, and abounded not only with fish, but with the
enchanted and amphibious animal which gives oil to the lamp.
[The seals are considered by the Highlanders as enchanted
princes.] The deer were larger and more numerous; the white-
tusked boar, the chase of which the brave loved best, was yet to
be roused in those western solitudes; the men were nobler, wiser,
and stronger than the degenerate brood who lived under the Saxon
banner. The daughters of the land were beautiful, with blue eyes
and fair hair, and bosoms of snow; and out of these she would
choose a wife for Hamish, of blameless descent, spotless fame,
fixed and true affection, who should be in their summer bothy as
a beam of the sun, and in their winter abode as the warmth of the
needful fire."
Such were the topics with which Elspat strove to soothe the
despair of her son, and to determine him, if possible, to leave
the fatal spot, on which he seemed resolved to linger. The style
of her rhetoric was poetical, but in other respects resembled
that which, like other fond mothers, she had lavished on Hamish,
while a child or a boy, in order to gain his consent to do
something he had no mind to; and she spoke louder, quicker, and
more earnestly, in proportion as she began to despair of her
words carrying conviction.
On the mind of Hamish her eloquence made no impression. He knew
far better than she did the actual situation of the country, and
was sensible that, though it might be possible to hide himself as
a fugitive among more distant mountains, there was now no corner
in the Highlands in which his father's profession could be
practised, even if he had not adopted, from the improved ideas of
the time when he lived, the opinion that the trade of the cateran
was no longer the road to honour and distinction. Her words were
therefore poured into regardless ears, and she exhausted herself
in vain in the attempt to paint the regions of her mother's
kinsmen in such terms as might tempt Hamish to accompany her
thither. She spoke for hours, but she spoke in vain. She could
extort no answer, save groans and sighs and ejaculations,
expressing the extremity of despair.
At length, starting on her feet, and changing the monotonous tone
in which she had chanted, as it were, the praises of the province
of refuge, into the short, stern language of eager passion--"I am
a fool," she said, "to spend my words upon an idle, poor-
spirited, unintelligent boy, who crouches like a hound to the
lash. Wait here, and receive your taskmasters, and abide your
chastisement at their hands; but do not think your mother's eyes
will behold it. I could not see it and live. My eyes have
looked often upon death, but never upon dishonour. Farewell,
Hamish! We never meet again."
She dashed from the hut like a lapwing, and perhaps for the
moment actually entertained the purpose which she expressed, of
parting with her son for ever. A fearful sight she would have
been that evening to any who might have met her wandering through
the wilderness like a restless spirit, and speaking to herself in
language which will endure no translation. She rambled for
hours, seeking rather than shunning the most dangerous paths.
The precarious track through the morass, the dizzy path along the
edge of the precipice or by the banks of the gulfing river, were
the roads which, far from avoiding, she sought with eagerness,
and traversed with reckless haste. But the courage arising from
despair was the means of saving the life which (though deliberate
suicide was rarely practised in the Highlands) she was perhaps
desirous of terminating. Her step on the verge of the precipice
was firm as that of the wild goat. Her eye, in that state of
excitation, was so keen as to discern, even amid darkness, the
perils which noon would not have enabled a stranger to avoid.
Elspat's course was not directly forward, else she had soon been
far from the bothy in which she had left her son. It was
circuitous, for that hut was the centre to which her heartstrings
were chained, and though she wandered around it, she felt it
impossible to leave the vicinity. With the first beams of
morning she returned to the hut. Awhile she paused at the
wattled door, as if ashamed that lingering fondness should have
brought her back to the spot which she had left with the purpose
of never returning; but there was yet more of fear and anxiety in
her hesitation--of anxiety, lest her fair-haired son had suffered
from the effects of her potion--of fear, lest his enemies had
come upon him in the night. She opened the door of the hut
gently, and entered with noiseless step. Exhausted with his
sorrow and anxiety, and not entirely relieved perhaps from the
influence of the powerful opiate, Hamish Bean again slept the
stern, sound sleep by which the Indians are said to be overcome
during the interval of their torments. His mother was scarcely
sure that she actually discerned his form on the bed, scarce
certain that her ear caught the sound of his breathing. With a
throbbing heart, Elspat went to the fireplace in the centre of
the hut, where slumbered, covered with a piece of turf, the
glimmering embers of the fire, never extinguished on a Scottish
hearth until the indwellers leave the mansion for ever.
"Feeble greishogh," [Greishogh, a glowing ember.] she said, as
she lighted, by the help of a match, a splinter of bog pine which
was to serve the place of a candle--"weak greishogh, soon shalt
thou be put out for ever, and may Heaven grant that the life of
Elspat MacTavish have no longer duration than thine!"
While she spoke she raised the blazing light towards the bed, on
which still lay the prostrate limbs of her son, in a posture that
left it doubtful whether he slept or swooned. As she advanced
towards him, the light flashed upon his eyes--he started up in an
instant, made a stride forward with his naked dirk in his hand,
like a man armed to meet a mortal enemy, and exclaimed, "Stand
off!--on thy life, stand off!"
"It is the word and the action of my husband," answered Elspat;
"and I know by his speech and his step the son of MacTavish
Mhor."
"Mother," said Hamish, relapsing from his tone of desperate
firmness into one of melancholy expostulation--"oh, dearest
mother, wherefore have you returned hither?"
"Ask why the hind comes back to the fawn," said Elspat, "why the
cat of the mountain returns to her lodge and her young. Know
you, Hamish, that the heart of the mother only lives in the bosom
of the child."
"Then will it soon cease to throb," said Hamish, "unless it can
beat within a bosom that lies beneath the turf. Mother, do not
blame me. If I weep, it is not for myself but for you; for my
sufferings will soon be over, but yours--oh, who but Heaven shall
set a boundary to them?"
Elspat shuddered and stepped backward, but almost instantly
resumed her firm and upright position and her dauntless bearing.
"I thought thou wert a man but even now," she said, "and thou art
again a child. Hearken to me yet, and let us leave this place
together. Have I done thee wrong or injury? if so, yet do not
avenge it so cruelly. See, Elspat MacTavish, who never kneeled
before even to a priest, falls prostrate before her own son, and
craves his forgiveness." And at once she threw herself on her
knees before the young man, seized on his hand, and kissing it an
hundred times, repeated as often, in heart-breaking accents, the
most earnest entreaties for forgiveness. "Pardon," she
exclaimed, "pardon, for the sake of your father's ashes--pardon,
for the sake of the pain with which I bore thee, the care with
which I nurtured thee!--Hear it, Heaven, and behold it, Earth--
the mother asks pardon of her child, and she is refused!"
It was in vain that Hamish endeavoured to stem this tide of
passion, by assuring his mother, with the most solemn
asseverations, that he forgave entirely the fatal deceit which
she had practised upon him.
"Empty words," she said, "idle protestations, which are but used
to hide the obduracy of your resentment. Would you have me
believe you, then leave the hut this instant, and retire from a
country which every hour renders more dangerous. Do this, and I
may think you have forgiven me; refuse it, and again I call on
moon and stars, heaven and earth, to witness the unrelenting
resentment with which you prosecute your mother for a fault,
which, if it be one, arose out of love to you."
"Mother," said Hamish, "on this subject you move me not. I will
fly before no man. If Barcaldine should send every Gael that is
under his banner, here, and in this place, will I abide them; and
when you bid me fly, you may as well command yonder mountain to
be loosened from its foundations. Had I been sure of the road by
which they are coming hither, I had spared them the pains of
seeking me; but I might go by the mountain, while they perchance
came by the lake. Here I will abide my fate; nor is there in
Scotland a voice of power enough to bid me stir from hence, and
be obeyed."
"Here, then, I also stay," said Elspat, rising up and speaking
with assumed composure. "I have seen my husband's death--my
eyelids shall not grieve to look on the fall of my son. But
MacTavish Mhor died as became the brave, with his good sword in
his right hand; my son will perish like the bullock that is
driven to the shambles by the Saxon owner who had bought him for
a price."
"Mother," said the unhappy young man, "you have taken my life.
To that you have a right, for you gave it; but touch not my
honour! It came to me from a brave train of ancestors, and
should be sullied neither by man's deed nor woman's speech. What
I shall do, perhaps I myself yet know not; but tempt me no
farther by reproachful words--you have already made wounds more
than you can ever heal."
"It is well, my son," said Elspat, in reply. "Expect neither
farther complaint nor remonstrance from me; but let us be silent,
and wait the chance which Heaven shall send us."
The sun arose on the next morning, and found the bothy silent as
the grave. The mother and son had arisen, and were engaged each
in their separate task--Hamish in preparing and cleaning his arms
with the greatest accuracy, but with an air of deep dejection.
Elspat, more restless in her agony of spirit, employed herself in
making ready the food which the distress of yesterday had induced
them both to dispense with for an unusual number of hours. She
placed it on the board before her son so soon as it was prepared,
with the words of a Gaelic poet, "Without daily food, the
husbandman's ploughshare stands still in the furrow; without
daily food, the sword of the warrior is too heavy for his hand.
Our bodies are our slaves, yet they must be fed if we would have
their service. So spake in ancient days the Blind Bard to the
warriors of Fion."
The young man made no reply, but he fed on what was placed before
him, as if to gather strength for the scene which he was to
undergo. When his mother saw that he had eaten what sufficed
him, she again filled the fatal quaigh, and proffered it as the
conclusion of the repast. But he started aside with a convulsive
gesture, expressive at once of fear and abhorrence.
"Nay, my son," she said, "this time surely, thou hast no cause of
fear."
"Urge me not, mother," answered Hamish--"or put the leprous toad
into a flagon, and I will drink; but from that accursed cup, and
of that mind-destroying potion, never will I taste more!"
"At your pleasure, my son," said Elspat, haughtily, and began,
with much apparent assiduity, the various domestic tasks which
had been interrupted during the preceding day. Whatever was at
her heart, all anxiety seemed banished from her looks and
demeanour. It was but from an over-activity of bustling exertion
that it might have been perceived, by a close observer, that her
actions were spurred by some internal cause of painful
excitement; and such a spectator, too, might also have observed
how often she broke off the snatches of songs or tunes which she
hummed, apparently without knowing what she was doing, in order
to cast a hasty glance from the door of the hut. Whatever might
be in the mind of Hamish, his demeanour was directly the reverse
of that adopted by his mother. Having finished the task of
cleaning and preparing his arms, which he arranged within the
hut, he sat himself down before the door of the bothy, and
watched the opposite hill, like the fixed sentinel who expects
the approach of an enemy. Noon found him in the same unchanged
posture, and it was an hour after that period, when his mother,
standing beside him, laid her hand on his shoulder, and said, in
a tone indifferent, as if she had been talking of some friendly
visit, "When dost thou expect them?"
"They cannot be here till the shadows fall long to the eastward,"
replied Hamish; "that is, even supposing the nearest party,
commanded by Sergeant Allan Breack Cameron, has been commanded
hither by express from Dunbarton, as it is most likely they
will."
"Then enter beneath your mother's roof once more; partake the
last time of the food which she has prepared; after this, let
them come, and thou shalt see if thy mother is an useless
encumbrance in the day of strife. Thy hand, practised as it is,
cannot fire these arms so fast as I can load them; nay, if it is
necessary, I do not myself fear the flash or the report, and my
aim has been held fatal."
"In the name of Heaven, mother, meddle not with this matter!"
said Hamish. "Allan Breack is a wise man and a kind one, and
comes of a good stem. It may be, he can promise for our officers
that they will touch me with no infamous punishment; and if they
offer me confinement in the dungeon, or death by the musket, to
that I may not object."
"Alas, and wilt thou trust to their word, my foolish child?
Remember the race of Dermid were ever fair and false; and no
sooner shall they have gyves on thy hands, than they will strip
thy shoulders for the scourge."
"Save your advice, mother," said Hamish, sternly; "for me, my
mind is made up."
But though he spoke thus, to escape the almost persecuting
urgency of his mother, Hamish would have found it, at that
moment, impossible to say upon what course of conduct he had thus
fixed. On one point alone he was determined--namely, to abide
his destiny, be what it might, and not to add to the breach of
his word, of which he had been involuntarily rendered guilty, by
attempting to escape from punishment. This act of self-devotion
he conceived to be due to his own honour and that of his
countrymen. Which of his comrades would in future be trusted, if
he should be considered as having broken his word, and betrayed
the confidence of his officers? and whom but Hamish Bean
MacTavish would the Gael accuse for having verified and confirmed
the suspicions which the Saxon General was well known to
entertain against the good faith of the Highlanders? He was,
therefore, bent firmly to abide his fate. But whether his
intention was to yield himself peaceably into the bands of the
party who should come to apprehend him, or whether he purposed,
by a show of resistance, to provoke them to kill him on the spot,
was a question which he could not himself have answered. His
desire to see Barcaldine, and explain the cause of his absence at
the appointed time, urged him to the one course; his fear of the
degrading punishment, and of his mother's bitter upbraidings,
strongly instigated the latter and the more dangerous purpose.
He left it to chance to decide when the crisis should arrive; nor
did he tarry long in expectation of the catastrophe.
Evening approached; the gigantic shadows of the mountains
streamed in darkness towards the east, while their western peaks
were still glowing with crimson and gold. The road which winds
round Ben Cruachan was fully visible from the door of the bothy,
when a party of five Highland soldiers, whose arms glanced in the
sun, wheeled suddenly into sight from the most distant extremity,
where the highway is hidden behind the mountain. One of the
party walked a little before the other four, who marched
regularly and in files, according to the rules of military
discipline. There was no dispute, from the firelocks which they
carried, and the plaids and bonnets which they wore, that they
were a party of Hamish's regiment, under a non-commissioned
officer; and there could be as little doubt of the purpose of
their appearance on the banks of Loch Awe.
"They come briskly forward"--said the widow of MacTavish Mhor;--
"I wonder how fast or how slow some of them will return again!
But they are five, and it is too much odds for a fair field.
Step back within the hut, my son, and shoot from the loophole
beside the door. Two you may bring down ere they quit the
highroad for the footpath--there will remain but three; and your
father, with my aid, has often stood against that number."
Hamish Bean took the gun which his mother offered, but did not
stir from the door of the hut. He was soon visible to the party
on the highroad, as was evident from their increasing their pace
to a run--the files, however, still keeping together like coupled
greyhounds, and advancing with great rapidity. In far less time
than would have been accomplished by men less accustomed to the
mountains, they had left the highroad, traversed the narrow path,
and approached within pistol-shot of the bothy, at the door of
which stood Hamish, fixed like a statue of stone, with his
firelock in his band, while his mother, placed behind him, and
almost driven to frenzy by the violence of her passions,
reproached him in the strongest terms which despair could invent,
for his want of resolution and faintness of heart. Her words
increased the bitter gall which was arising in the young man's
own spirit, as he observed the unfriendly speed with which his
late comrades were eagerly making towards him, like hounds
towards the stag when he is at bay. The untamed and angry
passions which he inherited from father and mother, were awakened
by the supposed hostility of those who pursued him; and the
restraint under which these passions had been hitherto held by
his sober judgment began gradually to give way. The sergeant now
called to him, "Hamish Bean MacTavish, lay down your arms and
surrender."
"Do YOU stand, Allan Breack Cameron, and command your men to
stand, or it will be the worse for us all."
"Halt, men," said the sergeant, but continuing himself to
advance. "Hamish, think what you do, and give up your gun; you
may spill blood, but you cannot escape punishment."
"The scourge--the scourge--my son, beware the scourge!"
whispered his mother.
"Take heed, Allan Breack," said Hamish. "I would not hurt you
willingly, but I will not be taken unless you can assure me
against the Saxon lash."
"Fool!" answered Cameron, "you know I cannot. Yet I will do all
I can. I will say I met you on your return, and the punishment
will be light; but give up your musket--Come on, men."
Instantly he rushed forward, extending his arm as if to push
aside the young man's levelled firelock. Elspat exclaimed, "Now,
spare not your father's blood to defend your father's hearth!"
Hamish fired his piece, and Cameron dropped dead. All these
things happened, it might be said, in the same moment of time.
The soldiers rushed forward and seized Hamish, who, seeming
petrified with what he had done, offered not the least
resistance. Not so his mother, who, seeing the men about to put
handcuffs on her son, threw herself on the soldiers with such
fury, that it required two of them to hold her, while the rest
secured the prisoner.
"Are you not an accursed creature," said one of the men to
Hamish, "to have slain your best friend, who was contriving,
during the whole march, how he could find some way of getting you
off without punishment for your desertion?"
"Do you hear THAT, mother?" said Hamish, turning himself as much
towards her as his bonds would permit; but the mother heard
nothing, and saw nothing. She had fainted on the floor of her
hut. Without waiting for her recovery, the party almost
immediately began their homeward march towards Dunbarton, leading
along with them their prisoner. They thought it necessary,
however, to stay for a little space at the village of Dalmally,
from which they despatched a party of the inhabitants to bring
away the body of their unfortunate leader, while they themselves
repaired to a magistrate, to state what had happened, and require
his instructions as to the farther course to be pursued. The
crime being of a military character, they were instructed to
march the prisoner to Dunbarton without delay.
The swoon of the mother of Hamish lasted for a length of time--
the longer perhaps that her constitution, strong as it was, must
have been much exhausted by her previous agitation of three days'
endurance. She was roused from her stupor at length by female
voices, which cried the coronach, or lament for the dead, with
clapping of hands and loud exclamations; while the melancholy
note of a lament, appropriate to the clan Cameron, played on the
bagpipe, was heard from time to time.
Elspat started up like one awakened from the dead, and without
any accurate recollection of the scene which had passed before
her eyes. There were females in the hut who were swathing the
corpse in its bloody plaid before carrying it from the fatal
spot. "Women," she said, starting up and interrupting their
chant at once and their labour--"Tell me, women, why sing you the
dirge of MacDhonuil Dhu in the house of MacTavish Mhor?"
"She-wolf, be silent with thine ill-omened yell," answered one of
the females, a relation of the deceased, "and let us do our duty
to our beloved kinsman. There shall never be coronach cried, or
dirge played, for thee or thy bloody wolf-burd. [Wolf-brood--
that is, wolf-cub.] The ravens shall eat him from the gibbet, and
the foxes and wild-cats shall tear thy corpse upon the hill.
Cursed be he that would sain [Bless.] your bones, or add a stone
to your cairn!"
"Daughter of a foolish mother," answered the widow of MacTavish
Mhor, "know that the gibbet with which you threaten us is no
portion of our inheritance. For thirty years the Black Tree of
the Law, whose apples are dead men's bodies, hungered after the
beloved husband of my heart; but he died like a brave man, with
the sword in his hand, and defrauded it of its hopes and its
fruit."
"So shall it not be with thy child, bloody sorceress," replied
the female mourner, whose passions were as violent as those of
Elspat herself. "The ravens shall tear his fair hair to line
their nests, before the sun sinks beneath the Treshornish
islands."
These words recalled to Elspat's mind the whole history of the
last three dreadful days. At first she stood fixed, as if the
extremity of distress had converted her into stone; but in a
minute, the pride and violence of her temper, outbraved as she
thought herself on her own threshold, enabled her to reply, "Yes,
insulting hag, my fair-haired boy may die, but it will not be
with a white hand. It has been dyed in the blood of his enemy,
in the best blood of a Cameron--remember that; and when you lay
your dead in his grave, let it be his best epitaph that he was
killed by Hamish Bean for essaying to lay hands on the son of
MacTavish Mhor on his own threshold. Farewell--the shame of
defeat, loss, and slaughter remain with the clan that has endured
it!"
The relative of the slaughtered Cameron raised her voice in
reply; but Elspat, disdaining to continue the objurgation, or
perhaps feeling her grief likely to overmaster her power of
expressing her resentment, had left the hut, and was walking
forth in the bright moonshine.
The females who were arranging the corpse of the slaughtered man
hurried from their melancholy labour to look after her tall
figure as it glided away among the cliffs. "I am glad she is
gone," said one of the younger persons who assisted. "I would as
soon dress a corpse when the great fiend himself--God sain us!--
stood visibly before us, as when Elspat of the Tree is amongst
us. Ay, ay, even overmuch intercourse hath she had with the
enemy in her day."
"Silly woman," answered the female who had maintained the
dialogue with the departed Elspat, "thinkest thou that there is a
worse fiend on earth, or beneath it, than the pride and fury of
an offended woman, like yonder bloody-minded hag? Know that
blood has been as familiar to her as the dew to the mountain
daisy. Many and many a brave man has she caused to breathe their
last for little wrong they had done to her or theirs. But her
hough-sinews are cut, now that her wolf-burd must, like a
murderer as he is, make a murderer's end."
Whilst the women thus discoursed together, as they watched the
corpse of Allan Breack Cameron, the unhappy cause of his death
pursued her lonely way across the mountain. While she remained
within sight of the bothy, she put a strong constraint on
herself, that by no alteration of pace or gesture she might
afford to her enemies the triumph of calculating the excess of
her mental agitation, nay, despair. She stalked, therefore, with
a slow rather than a swift step, and, holding herself upright,
seemed at once to endure with firmness that woe which was passed,
and bid defiance to that which was about to come. But when she
was beyond the sight of those who remained in the hut, she could
no longer suppress the extremity of her agitation. Drawing her
mantle wildly round her, she stopped at the first knoll, and
climbing to its summit, extended her arms up to the bright moon,
as if accusing heaven and earth for her misfortunes, and uttered
scream on scream, like those of an eagle whose nest has been
plundered of her brood. Awhile she vented her grief in these
inarticulate cries, then rushed on her way with a hasty and
unequal step, in the vain hope of overtaking the party which was
conveying her son a prisoner to Dunbarton. But her strength,
superhuman as it seemed, failed her in the trial; nor was it
possible for her, with her utmost efforts, to accomplish her
purpose.
Yet she pressed onward, with all the speed which her exhausted
frame could exert. When food became indispensable, she entered
the first cottage. "Give me to eat," she said. "I am the widow
of MacTavish Mhor--I am the mother of Hamish MacTavish Bean,--
give me to eat, that I may once more see my fair-haired son."
Her demand was never refused, though granted in many cases with a
kind of struggle between compassion and aversion in some of those
to whom she applied, which was in others qualified by fear. The
share she had had in occasioning the death of Allan Breack
Cameron, which must probably involve that of her own son, was not
accurately known; but, from a knowledge of her violent passions
and former habits of life, no one doubted that in one way or
other she had been the cause of the catastrophe, and Hamish Bean
was considered, in the slaughter which he had committed, rather
as the instrument than as the accomplice of his mother.
This general opinion of his countrymen was of little service to
the unfortunate Hamish. As his captain, Green Colin, understood
the manners and habits of his country, he had no difficulty in
collecting from Hamish the particulars accompanying his supposed
desertion, and the subsequent death of the non-commissioned
officer. He felt the utmost compassion for a youth, who had thus
fallen a victim to the extravagant and fatal fondness of a
parent. But he had no excuse to plead which could rescue his
unhappy recruit from the doom which military discipline and the
award of a court-martial denounced against him for the crime he
had committed.
No time had been lost in their proceedings, and as little was
interposed betwixt sentence and execution. General -- had
determined to make a severe example of the first deserter who
should fall into his power, and here was one who had defended
himself by main force, and slain in the affray the officer sent
to take him into custody. A fitter subject for punishment could
not have occurred, and Hamish was sentenced to immediate
execution. All which the interference of his captain in his
favour could procure was that he should die a soldier's death;
for there had been a purpose of executing him upon the gibbet.
The worthy clergyman of Glenorquhy chanced to be at Dunbarton, in
attendance upon some church courts, at the time of this
catastrophe. He visited his unfortunate parishioner in his
dungeon, found him ignorant indeed, but not obstinate, and the
answers which he received from him, when conversing on religious
topics, were such as induced him doubly to regret that a mind
naturally pure and noble should have remained unhappily so wild
and uncultivated.
When he ascertained the real character and disposition of the
young man, the worthy pastor made deep and painful reflections on
his own shyness and timidity, which, arising out of the evil fame
that attached to the lineage of Hamish, had restrained him from
charitably endeavouring to bring this strayed sheep within the
great fold. While the good minister blamed his cowardice in
times past, which had deterred him from risking his person, to
save, perhaps, an immortal soul, he resolved no longer to be
governed by such timid counsels, but to endeavour, by application
to his officers, to obtain a reprieve, at least, if not a pardon,
for the criminal, in whom he felt so unusually interested, at
once from his docility of temper and his generosity of
disposition.
Accordingly the divine sought out Captain Campbell at the
barracks within the garrison. There was a gloomy melancholy on
the brow of Green Colin, which was not lessened, but increased,
when the clergyman stated his name, quality, and errand. "You
cannot tell me better of the young man than I am disposed to
believe," answered the Highland officer; "you cannot ask me to do
more in his behalf than I am of myself inclined, and have already
endeavoured to do. But it is all in vain. General -- is half a
Lowlander, half an Englishman. He has no idea of the high and
enthusiastic character which in these mountains often brings
exalted virtues in contact with great crimes, which, however, are
less offences of the heart than errors of the understanding. I
have gone so far as to tell him, that in this young man he was
putting to death the best and the bravest of my company, where
all, or almost all, are good and brave. I explained to him by
what strange delusion the culprit's apparent desertion was
occasioned, and how little his heart was accessory to the crime
which his hand unhappily committed. His answer was, 'These are
Highland visions, Captain Campbell, as unsatisfactory and vain as
those of the second sight. An act of gross desertion may, in any
case, be palliated under the plea of intoxication; the murder of
an officer may be as easily coloured over with that of temporary
insanity. The example must be made, and if it has fallen on a
man otherwise a good recruit, it will have the greater effect.'
Such being the general's unalterable purpose," continued Captain
Campbell, with a sigh, "be it your care, reverend sir, that your
penitent prepare by break of day tomorrow for that great change
which we shall all one day be subjected to."
"And for which," said the clergyman, "may God prepare us all, as
I in my duty will not be wanting to this poor youth!"
Next morning, as the very earliest beams of sunrise saluted the
grey towers which crown the summit of that singular and
tremendous rock, the soldiers of the new Highland regiment
appeared on the parade, within the Castle of Dunbarton, and
having fallen into order, began to move downward by steep
staircases, and narrow passages towards the external barrier-
gate, which is at the very bottom of the rock. The wild wailings
of the pibroch were heard at times, interchanged with the drums
and fifes, which beat the Dead March.
The unhappy criminal's fate did not, at first, excite that
general sympathy in the regiment which would probably have arisen
had he been executed for desertion alone. The slaughter of the
unfortunate Allan Breack had given a different colour to Hamish's
offence; for the deceased was much beloved, and besides belonged
to a numerous and powerful clan, of whom there were many in the
ranks. The unfortunate criminal, on the contrary, was little
known to, and scarcely connected with, any of his regimental
companions. His father had been, indeed, distinguished for his
strength and manhood; but he was of a broken clan, as those names
were called who had no chief to lead them to battle.
It would have been almost impossible in another case to have
turned out of the ranks of the regiment the party necessary for
execution of the sentence; but the six individuals selected for
that purpose, were friends of the deceased, descended, like him,
from the race of MacDhonuil Dhu; and while they prepared for the
dismal task which their duty imposed, it was not without a stern
feeling of gratified revenge. The leading company of the
regiment began now to defile from the barrier-gate, and was
followed by the others, each successively moving and halting
according to the orders of the adjutant, so as to form three
sides of an oblong square, with the ranks faced inwards. The
fourth, or blank side of the square, was closed up by the huge
and lofty precipice on which the Castle rises. About the centre
of the procession, bare-headed, disarmed, and with his hands
bound, came the unfortunate victim of military law. He was
deadly pale, but his step was firm and his eye as bright as ever.
The clergyman walked by his side; the coffin, which was to
receive his mortal remains, was borne before him. The looks of
his comrades were still, composed, and solemn. They felt for the
youth, whose handsome form and manly yet submissive deportment
had, as soon as he was distinctly visible to them, softened the
hearts of many, even of some who had been actuated by vindictive
feelings.
The coffin destined for the yet living body of Hamish Bean was
placed at the bottom of the hollow square, about two yards
distant from the foot of the precipice, which rises in that place
as steep as a stone wall to the height of three or four hundred
feet. Thither the prisoner was also led, the clergyman still
continuing by his side, pouring forth exhortations of courage and
consolation, to which the youth appeared to listen with
respectful devotion. With slow, and, it seemed, almost unwilling
steps, the firing party entered the square, and were drawn up
facing the prisoner, about ten yards distant. The clergyman was
now about to retire. "Think, my son," he said, "on what I have
told you, and let your hope be rested on the anchor which I have
given. You will then exchange a short and miserable existence
here for a life in which you will experience neither sorrow nor
pain. Is there aught else which you can entrust to me to execute
for you?"
The youth looked at his sleeve buttons. They were of gold, booty
perhaps which his father had taken from some English officer
during the civil wars. The clergyman disengaged them from his
sleeves.
"My mother!" he said with some effort--"give them to my poor
mother! See her, good father, and teach her what she should
think of all this. Tell her Hamish Bean is more glad to die than
ever he was to rest after the longest day's hunting. Farewell,
sir--farewell!"
The good man could scarce retire from the fatal spot. An officer
afforded him the support of his arm. At his last look towards
Hamish, he beheld him alive and kneeling on the coffin; the few
that were around him had all withdrawn. The fatal word was
given, the rock rung sharp to the sound of the discharge, and
Hamish, falling forward with a groan, died, it may be supposed,
without almost a sense of the passing agony.
Ten or twelve of his own company then came forward, and laid with
solemn reverence the remains of their comrade in the coffin,
while the Dead March was again struck up, and the several
companies, marching in single files, passed the coffin one by
one, in order that all might receive from the awful spectacle the
warning which it was peculiarly intended to afford. The regiment
was then marched off the ground, and reascended the ancient
cliff, their music, as usual on such occasions, striking lively
strains, as if sorrow, or even deep thought, should as short a
while as possible be the tenant of the soldier's bosom.
At the same time the small party, which we before mentioned, bore
the bier of the ill-fated Hamish to his humble grave, in a corner
of the churchyard of Dunbarton, usually assigned to criminals.
Here, among the dust of the guilty, lies a youth, whose name, had
he survived the ruin of the fatal events by which he was hurried
into crime, might have adorned the annals of the brave.
The minister of Glenorquhy left Dunbarton immediately after he
had witnessed the last scene of this melancholy catastrophe. His
reason acquiesced in the justice of the sentence, which required
blood for blood, and he acknowledged that the vindictive
character of his countrymen required to be powerfully restrained
by the strong curb of social law. But still he mourned over the
individual victim. Who may arraign the bolt of Heaven when it
bursts among the sons of the forest? yet who can refrain from
mourning when it selects for the object of its blighting aim the
fair stem of a young oak, that promised to be the pride of the
dell in which it flourished? Musing on these melancholy events,
noon found him engaged in the mountain passes, by which he was to
return to his still distant home.
Confident in his knowledge of the country, the clergyman had left
the main road, to seek one of those shorter paths, which are only
used by pedestrians, or by men, like the minister, mounted on the
small, but sure-footed, hardy, and sagacious horses of the
country. The place which he now traversed was in itself gloomy
and desolate, and tradition had added to it the terror of
superstition, by affirming it was haunted by an evil spirit,
termed CLOGHT-DEARG--that is, Redmantle--who at all times, but
especially at noon and at midnight, traversed the glen, in enmity
both to man and the inferior creation, did such evil as her power
was permitted to extend to, and afflicted with ghastly terrors
those whom she had not license otherwise to hurt.
The minister of Glenorquhy had set his face in opposition to many
of these superstitions, which he justly thought were derived from
the dark ages of Popery, perhaps even from those of paganism, and
unfit to be entertained or believed by the Christians of an
enlightened age. Some of his more attached parishioners
considered him as too rash in opposing the ancient faith of their
fathers; and though they honoured the moral intrepidity of their
pastor, they could not avoid entertaining and expressing fears
that he would one day fall a victim to his temerity, and be torn
to pieces in the glen of the Cloght-dearg, or some of those other
haunted wilds, which he appeared rather to have a pride and
pleasure in traversing alone, on the days and hours when the
wicked spirits were supposed to have especial power over man and
beast.
These legends came across the mind of the clergyman, and,
solitary as he was, a melancholy smile shaded his cheek, as he
thought of the inconsistency of human nature, and reflected how
many brave men, whom the yell of the pibroch would have sent
headlong against fixed bayonets, as the wild bull rushes on his
enemy, might have yet feared to encounter those visionary
terrors, which he himself, a man of peace, and in ordinary perils
no way remarkable for the firmness of his nerves, was now risking
without hesitation.
As he looked around the scene of desolation, he could not but
acknowledge, in his own mind, that it was not ill chosen for the
haunt of those spirits, which are said to delight in solitude and
desolation. The glen was so steep and narrow that there was but
just room for the meridian sun to dart a few scattered rays upon
the gloomy and precarious stream which stole through its
recesses, for the most part in silence, but occasionally
murmuring sullenly against the rocks and large stones which
seemed determined to bar its further progress. In winter, or in
the rainy season, this small stream was a foaming torrent of the
most formidable magnitude, and it was at such periods that it had
torn open and laid bare the broad-faced and huge fragments of
rock which, at the season of which we speak, hid its course from
the eye, and seemed disposed totally to interrupt its course.
"Undoubtedly," thought the clergyman, "this mountain rivulet,
suddenly swelled by a waterspout or thunderstorm, has often been
the cause of those accidents which, happening in the glen called
by her name, have been ascribed to the agency of the Cloght-
dearg."
Just as this idea crossed his mind, he heard a female voice
exclaim, in a wild and thrilling accent, "Michael Tyrie! Michael
Tyrie!" He looked round in astonishment, and not without some
fear. It seemed for an instant, as if the evil being, whose
existence he had disowned, was about to appear for the punishment
of his incredulity. This alarm did not hold him more than an
instant, nor did it prevent his replying in a firm voice, "Who
calls? and where are you?"
"One who journeys in wretchedness, between life and death,"
answered the voice; and the speaker, a tall female, appeared from
among the fragments of rocks which had concealed her from view.
As she approached more closely, her mantle of bright tartan, in
which the red colour much predominated, her stature, the long
stride with which she advanced, and the writhen features and wild
eyes which were visible from under her curch, would have made her
no inadequate representative of the spirit which gave name to the
valley. But Mr. Tyrie instantly knew her as the Woman of the
Tree, the widow of MacTavish Mhor, the now childless mother of
Hamish Bean. I am not sure whether the minister would not have
endured the visitation of the Cloght-dearg herself, rather than
the shock of Elspat's presence, considering her crime and her
misery. He drew up his horse instinctively, and stood
endeavouring to collect his ideas, while a few paces brought her
up to his horse's head.
"Michael Tyrie," said she, "the foolish women of the Clachan [The
village; literally, the stones.] hold thee as a god--be one to
me, and say that my son lives. Say this, and I too will be of
thy worship; I will bend my knees on the seventh day in thy house
of worship, and thy God shall be my God."
"Unhappy woman," replied the clergyman, "man forms not pactions
with his Maker as with a creature of clay like himself. Thinkest
thou to chaffer with Him, who formed the earth, and spread out
the heavens, or that thou canst offer aught of homage or devotion
that can be worth acceptance in his eyes? He hath asked
obedience, not sacrifice; patience under the trials with which He
afflicts us, instead of vain bribes, such as man offers to his
changeful brother of clay, that he may be moved from his
purpose."
"Be silent, priest!" answered the desperate woman; "speak not to
me the words of thy white book. Elspat's kindred were of those
who crossed themselves and knelt when the sacring bell was rung,
and she knows that atonement can be made on the altar for deeds
done in the field. Elspat had once flocks and herds, goats upon
the cliffs, and cattle in the strath. She wore gold around her
neck and on her hair--thick twists, as those worn by the heroes
of old. All these would she have resigned to the priest--all
these; and if he wished for the ornaments of a gentle lady, or
the sporran of a high chief, though they had been great as
Macallum Mhor himself, MacTavish Mhor would have procured them,
if Elspat had promised them. Elspat is now poor, and has nothing
to give. But the Black Abbot of Inchaffray would have bidden her
scourge her shoulders, and macerate her feet by pilgrimage; and
he would have granted his pardon to her when he saw that her
blood had flowed, and that her flesh had been torn. These were
the priests who had indeed power even with the most powerful;
they threatened the great men of the earth with the word of their
mouth, the sentence of their book, the blaze of their torch, the
sound of their sacring bell. The mighty bent to their will, and
unloosed at the word of the priests those whom they had bound in
their wrath, and set at liberty, unharmed, him whom they had
sentenced to death, and for whose blood they had thirsted. These
were a powerful race, and might well ask the poor to kneel, since
their power could humble the proud. But you!--against whom are
ye strong, but against women who have been guilty of folly, and
men who never wore sword? The priests of old were like the
winter torrent which fills this hollow valley, and rolls these
massive rocks against each other as easily as the boy plays with
the ball which he casts before him. But you!--you do but
resemble the summer-stricken stream, which is turned aside by the
rushes, and stemmed by a bush of sedges. Woe worth you, for
there is no help in you!"
The clergyman was at no loss to conceive that Elspat had lost the
Roman Catholic faith without gaining any other, and that she
still retained a vague and confused idea of the composition with
the priesthood, by confession, alms, and penance, and of their
extensive power, which, according to her notion, was adequate, if
duly propitiated, even to effecting her son's safety.
Compassionating her situation, and allowing for her errors and
ignorance, he answered her with mildness.
"Alas, unhappy woman! Would to God I could convince thee as
easily where thou oughtest to seek, and art sure to find,
consolation, as I can assure you with a single word, that were
Rome and all her priesthood once more in the plenitude of their
power, they could not, for largesse or penance, afford to thy
misery an atom of aid or comfort--Elspat MacTavish, I grieve to
tell you the news."
"I know them without thy speech," said the unhappy woman. "My
son is doomed to die."
"Elspat," resumed the clergyman, "he WAS doomed, and the sentence
has been executed."
The hapless mother threw her eyes up to heaven, and uttered a
shriek so unlike the voice of a human being, that the eagle which
soared in middle air answered it as she would have done the call
of her mate.
"It is impossible!" she exclaimed--"it is impossible! Men do
not condemn and kill on the same day! Thou art deceiving me.
The people call thee holy--hast thou the heart to tell a mother
she has murdered her only child?"
"God knows," said the priest, the tears falling fast from his
eyes, "that were it in my power, I would gladly tell better
tidings. But these which I bear are as certain as they are
fatal. My own ears heard the death-shot, my own eyes beheld thy
son's death--thy son's funeral. My tongue bears witness to what
my ears heard and my eyes saw."
The wretched female clasped her bands close together, and held
them up towards heaven like a sibyl announcing war and
desolation, while, in impotent yet frightful rage, she poured
forth a tide of the deepest imprecations. "Base Saxon churl!"
she exclaimed--"vile hypocritical juggler! May the eyes that
looked tamely on the death of my fair-haired boy be melted in
their sockets with ceaseless tears, shed for those that are
nearest and most dear to thee! May the ears that heard his
death-knell be dead hereafter to all other sounds save the
screech of the raven, and the hissing of the adder! May the
tongue that tells me of his death and of my own crime, be
withered in thy mouth--or better, when thou wouldst pray with thy
people, may the Evil One guide it, and give voice to blasphemies
instead of blessings, until men shall fly in terror from thy
presence, and the thunder of heaven be launched against thy head,
and stop for ever thy cursing and accursed voice! Begone, with
this malison! Elspat will never, never again bestow so many
words upon living man."
She kept her word. From that day the world was to her a
wilderness, in which she remained without thought, care, or
interest, absorbed in her own grief, indifferent to every thing
else.
With her mode of life, or rather of existence, the reader is
already as far acquainted as I have the power of making him. Of
her death, I can tell him nothing. It is supposed to have
happened several years after she had attracted the attention of
my excellent friend Mrs. Bethune Baliol. Her benevolence, which
was never satisfied with dropping a sentimental tear, when there
was room for the operation of effective charity, induced her to
make various attempts to alleviate the condition of this most
wretched woman. But all her exertions could only render Elspat's
means of subsistence less precarious--a circumstance which,
though generally interesting even to the most wretched outcasts,
seemed to her a matter of total indifference. Every attempt to
place any person in her hut to take charge of her miscarried,
through the extreme resentment with which she regarded all
intrusion on her solitude, or by the timidity of those who had
been pitched upon to be inmates with the terrible Woman of the
Tree. At length, when Elspat became totally unable (in
appearance at least) to turn herself on the wretched settle which
served her for a couch, the humanity of Mr. Tyrie's successor
sent two women to attend upon the last moments of the solitary,
which could not, it was judged, be far distant, and to avert the
possibility that she might perish for want of assistance or food,
before she sunk under the effects of extreme age or mortal
malady.
It was on a November evening, that the two women appointed for
this melancholy purpose arrived at the miserable cottage which we
have already described. Its wretched inmate lay stretched upon
the bed, and seemed almost already a lifeless corpse, save for
the wandering of the fierce dark eyes, which rolled in their
sockets in a manner terrible to look upon, and seemed to watch
with surprise and indignation the motions of the strangers, as
persons whose presence was alike unexpected and unwelcome. They
were frightened at her looks; but, assured in each other's
company, they kindled a fire, lighted a candle, prepared food,
and made other arrangements for the discharge of the duty
assigned them.
The assistants agreed they should watch the bedside of the sick
person by turns; but, about midnight, overcome by fatigue, (for
they had walked far that morning), both of them fell fast asleep.
When they awoke, which was not till after the interval of some
hours, the hut was empty, and the patient gone. They rose in
terror, and went to the door of the cottage, which was latched as
it had been at night. They looked out into the darkness, and
called upon their charge by her name. The night-raven screamed
from the old oak-tree, the fox howled on the hill, the hoarse
waterfall replied with its echoes; but there was no human answer.
The terrified women did not dare to make further search till
morning should appear; for the sudden disappearance of a creature
so frail as Elspat, together with the wild tenor of her history,
intimidated them from stirring from the hut. They remained,
therefore, in dreadful terror, sometimes thinking they heard her
voice without, and at other times, that sounds of a different
description were mingled with the mournful sigh of the night-
breeze, or the dashing of the cascade. Sometimes, too, the latch
rattled, as if some frail and impotent hand were in vain
attempting to lift it, and ever and anon they expected the
entrance of their terrible patient, animated by supernatural
strength, and in the company, perhaps, of some being more
dreadful than herself. Morning came at length. They sought
brake, rock, and thicket in vain. Two hours after daylight, the
minister himself appeared, and, on the report of the watchers,
caused the country to be alarmed, and a general and exact search
to be made through the whole neighbourhood of the cottage and the
oak-tree. But it was all in vain. Elspat MacTavish was never
found, whether dead or alive; nor could there ever be traced the
slightest circumstance to indicate her fate.
The neighbourhood was divided concerning the cause of her
disappearance. The credulous thought that the evil spirit, under
whose influence she seemed to have acted, had carried her away in
the body; and there are many who are still unwilling, at untimely
hours, to pass the oak-tree, beneath which, as they allege, she
may still be seen seated according to her wont. Others less
superstitious supposed, that had it been possible to search the
gulf of the Corri Dhu, the profound deeps of the lake, or the
whelming eddies of the river, the remains of Elspat MacTavish
might have been discovered--as nothing was more natural,
considering her state of body and mind, than that she should have
fallen in by accident, or precipitated herself intentionally,
into one or other of those places of sure destruction. The
clergyman entertained an opinion of his own. He thought that,
impatient of the watch which was placed over her, this unhappy
woman's instinct had taught her, as it directs various domestic
animals, to withdraw herself from the sight of her own race, that
the death-struggle might take place in some secret den, where, in
all probability, her mortal relics would never meet the eyes of
mortals. This species of instinctive feeling seemed to him of a
tenor with the whole course of her unhappy life, and most likely
to influence her when it drew to a conclusion.
ÿ
End of THE HIGHLAND WIDOW.
*
MR. CROFTANGRY INTRODUCES ANOTHER TALE.
Together both on the high lawns appeared.
Under the opening eyelids of the morn
They drove afield. ELEGY ON LYCIDAS.
I have sometimes wondered why all the favourite occupations and
pastimes of mankind go to the disturbance of that happy state of
tranquillity, that OTIUM, as Horace terms it, which he says is
the object of all men's prayers, whether preferred from sea or
land; and that the undisturbed repose, of which we are so
tenacious, when duty or necessity compels us to abandon it, is
precisely what we long to exchange for a state of excitation, as
soon as we may prolong it at our own pleasure. Briefly, you have
only to say to a man, "Remain at rest," and you instantly inspire
the love of labour. The sportsman toils like his gamekeeper, the
master of the pack takes as severe exercise as his whipper-in,
the statesman or politician drudges more than the professional
lawyer; and, to come to my own case, the volunteer author
subjects himself to the risk of painful criticism, and the
assured certainty of mental and manual labour, just as completely
as his needy brother, whose necessities compel him to assume the
pen.
These reflections have been suggested by an annunciation on the
part of Janet, "that the little Gillie-whitefoot was come from
the printing-office."
"Gillie-blackfoot you should call him, Janet," was my response,
"for he is neither more nor less than an imp of the devil, come
to torment me for COPY, for so the printers call a supply of
manuscript for the press."
"Now, Cot forgie your honour," said Janet; "for it is no like
your ainsell to give such names to a faitherless bairn."
"I have got nothing else to give him, Janet; he must wait a
little."
"Then I have got some breakfast to give the bit gillie," said
Janet; "and he can wait by the fireside in the kitchen, till your
honour's ready; and cood enough for the like of him, if he was to
wait your honour's pleasure all day."
"But, Janet," said I to my little active superintendent, on her
return to the parlour, after having made her hospitable
arrangements, "I begin to find this writing our Chronicles is
rather more tiresome than I expected, for here comes this little
fellow to ask for manuscript--that is, for something to print--
and I have got none to give him."
"Your honour can be at nae loss. I have seen you write fast and
fast enough; and for subjects, you have the whole Highlands to
write about, and I am sure you know a hundred tales better than
that about Hamish MacTavish, for it was but about a young cateran
and an auld carlin, when all's done; and if they had burned the
rudas quean for a witch, I am thinking, may be they would not
have tyned their coals--and her to gar her ne'er-do-weel son
shoot a gentleman Cameron! I am third cousin to the Camerons
mysel'--my blood warms to them. And if you want to write about
deserters, I am sure there were deserters enough on the top of
Arthur's Seat, when the MacRaas broke out, and on that woeful day
beside Leith Pier--ohonari!"--
Here Janet began to weep, and to wipe her eyes with her apron.
For my part, the idea I wanted was supplied, but I hesitated to
make use of it. Topics, like times, are apt to become common by
frequent use. It is only an ass like Justice Shallow, who would
pitch upon the over-scutched tunes, which the carmen whistled,
and try to pass them off as his FANCIES and his GOOD-NIGHTS.
Now, the Highlands, though formerly a rich mine for original
matter, are, as my friend Mrs. Bethune Baliol warned me, in some
degree worn out by the incessant labour of modern romancers and
novelists, who, finding in those remote regions primitive habits
and manners, have vainly imagined that the public can never tire
of them; and so kilted Highlanders are to be found as frequently,
and nearly of as genuine descent, on the shelves of a circulating
library, as at a Caledonian ball. Much might have been made at
an earlier time out of the history of a Highland regiment, and
the singular revolution of ideas which must have taken place in
the minds of those who composed it, when exchanging their native
hills for the battle-fields of the Continent, and their simple,
and sometimes indolent domestic habits for the regular exertions
demanded by modern discipline. But the market is forestalled.
There is Mrs. Grant of Laggan, has drawn the manners, customs,
and superstitions of the mountains in their natural
unsophisticated state; [Letters from the Mountains, 3 vols.--
Essays on the Superstitions of the Highlanders--The Highlanders,
and other Poems, etc.] and my friend, General Stewart of Garth,
[The gallant and amiable author of the History of the Highland
Regiments, in whose glorious services his own share had been
great, went out Governor of St Lucia in 1828, and died in that
island on the 18th of December 1829,--no man more regretted, or
perhaps by a wider circle of friends and acquaintance.] in
giving the real history of the Highland regiments, has rendered
any attempt to fill up the sketch with fancy-colouring extremely
rash and precarious. Yet I, too, have still a lingering fancy to
add a stone to the cairn; and without calling in imagination to
aid the impressions of juvenile recollection, I may just attempt
to embody one or two scenes illustrative of the Highland
character, and which belong peculiarly to the Chronicles of the
Canongate, to the grey-headed eld of whom they are as familiar as
to Chrystal Croftangry. Yet I will not go back to the days of
clanship and claymores. Have at you, gentle reader, with a tale
of Two Drovers. An oyster may be crossed in love, says the
gentle Tilburina--and a drover may be touched on a point of
honour, says the Chronicler of the Canongate.
*
THE TWO DROVERS.
CHAPTER I.
It was the day after Doune Fair when my story commences. It had
been a brisk market. Several dealers had attended from the
northern and midland counties in England, and English money had
flown so merrily about as to gladden the hearts of the Highland
farmers. Many large droves were about to set off for England,
under the protection of their owners, or of the topsmen whom they
employed in the tedious, laborious, and responsible office of
driving the cattle for many hundred miles, from the market where
they had been purchased, to the fields or farmyards where they
were to be fattened for the shambles.
The Highlanders in particular are masters of this difficult trade
of driving, which seems to suit them as well as the trade of war.
It affords exercise for all their habits of patient endurance and
active exertion. They are required to know perfectly the drove-
roads, which lie over the wildest tracts of the country, and to
avoid as much as possible the highways, which distress the feet
of the bullocks, and the turnpikes, which annoy the spirit of the
drover; whereas on the broad green or grey track which leads
across the pathless moor, the herd not only move at ease and
without taxation, but, if they mind their business, may pick up a
mouthful of food by the way. At night the drovers usually sleep
along with their cattle, let the weather be what it will; and
many of these hardy men do not once rest under a roof during a
journey on foot from Lochaber to Lincolnshire. They are paid
very highly, for the trust reposed is of the last importance, as
it depends on their prudence, vigilance, and honesty whether the
cattle reach the final market in good order, and afford a profit
to the grazier. But as they maintain themselves at their own
expense, they are especially economical in that particular. At
the period we speak of, a Highland drover was victualled for his
long and toilsome journey with a few handfulls of oatmeal and two
or three onions, renewed from time to time, and a ram's horn
filled with whisky, which he used regularly, but sparingly, every
night and morning. His dirk, or SKENE-DHU, (that is, black-
knife), so worn as to be concealed beneath the arm, or by the
folds of the plaid, was his only weapon, excepting the cudgel
with which he directed the movements of the cattle. A Highlander
was never so happy as on these occasions. There was a variety in
the whole journey, which exercised the Celt's natural curiosity
and love of motion. There were the constant change of place and
scene, the petty adventures incidental to the traffic, and the
intercourse with the various farmers, graziers, and traders,
intermingled with occasional merry-makings, not the less
acceptable to Donald that they were void of expense. And there
was the consciousness of superior skill; for the Highlander, a
child amongst flocks, is a prince amongst herds, and his natural
habits induce him to disdain the shepherd's slothful life, so
that he feels himself nowhere more at home than when following a
gallant drove of his country cattle in the character of their
guardian.
Of the number who left Doune in the morning, and with the purpose
we have described, not a GLUNAMIE of them all cocked his bonnet
more briskly, or gartered his tartan hose under knee over a pair
of more promising SPIOGS, (legs), than did Robin Oig M'Combich,
called familiarly Robin Oig, that is young, or the Lesser, Robin.
Though small of stature, as the epithet Oig implies, and not very
strongly limbed, he was as light and alert as one of the deer of
his mountains. He had an elasticity of step which, in the course
of a long march, made many a stout fellow envy him; and the
manner in which he busked his plaid and adjusted his bonnet
argued a consciousness that so smart a John Highlandman as
himself would not pass unnoticed among the Lowland lasses. The
ruddy cheek, red lips, and white teeth set off a countenance
which had gained by exposure to the weather a healthful and hardy
rather than a rugged hue. If Robin Oig did not laugh, or even
smile frequently--as, indeed, is not the practice among his
countrymen--his bright eyes usually gleamed from under his bonnet
with an expression of cheerfulness ready to be turned into mirth.
The departure of Robin Oig was an incident in the little town, in
and near which he had many friends, male and female. He was a
topping person in his way, transacted considerable business on
his own behalf, and was entrusted by the best farmers in the
Highlands, in preference to any other drover in that district.
He might have increased his business to any extent had he
condescended to manage it by deputy; but except a lad or two,
sister's sons of his own, Robin rejected the idea of assistance,
conscious, perhaps, how much his reputation depended upon his
attending in person to the practical discharge of his duty in
every instance. He remained, therefore, contented with the
highest premium given to persons of his description, and
comforted himself with the hopes that a few journeys to England
might enable him to conduct business on his own account, in a
manner becoming his birth. For Robin Oig's father, Lachlan
M'Combich (or SON OF MY FRIEND, his actual clan surname being
M'Gregor), had been so called by the celebrated Rob Roy, because
of the particular friendship which had subsisted between the
grandsire of Robin and that renowned cateran. Some people even
said that Robin Oig derived his Christian name from one as
renowned in the wilds of Loch Lomond as ever was his namesake
Robin Hood in the precincts of merry Sherwood. "Of such
ancestry," as James Boswell says, "who would not be proud?"
Robin Oig was proud accordingly; but his frequent visits to
England and to the Lowlands had given him tact enough to know
that pretensions which still gave him a little right to
distinction in his own lonely glen, might be both obnoxious and
ridiculous if preferred elsewhere. The pride of birth,
therefore, was like the miser's treasure--the secret subject of
his contemplation, but never exhibited to strangers as a subject
of boasting.
Many were the words of gratulation and good-luck which were
bestowed on Robin Oig. The judges commended his drove,
especially Robin's own property, which were the best of them.
Some thrust out their snuff-mulls for the parting pinch, others
tendered the DOCH-AN-DORRACH, or parting cup. All cried, "Good-
luck travel out with you and come home with you. Give you luck
in the Saxon market--brave notes in the LEABHAR-DHU," (black
pocket-book), "and plenty of English gold in the SPORRAN" (pouch
of goat-skin).
The bonny lasses made their adieus more modestly, and more than
one, it was said, would have given her best brooch to be certain
that it was upon her that his eye last rested as he turned
towards the road.
Robin Oig had just given the preliminary "HOO-HOO!" to urge
forward the loiterers of the drove, when there was a cry behind
him:--
"Stay, Robin--bide a blink. Here is Janet of Tomahourich--auld
Janet, your father's sister."
"Plague on her, for an auld Highland witch and spaewife," said a
farmer from the Carse of Stirling; "she'll cast some of her
cantrips on the cattle."
"She canna do that," said another sapient of the same profession.
"Robin Oig is no the lad to leave any of them without tying Saint
Mungo's knot on their tails, and that will put to her speed the
best witch that ever flew over Dimayet upon a broomstick."
It may not be indifferent to the reader to know that the Highland
cattle are peculiarly liable to be TAKEN, or infected, by spells
and witchcraft, which judicious people guard against by knitting
knots of peculiar complexity on the tuft of hair which terminates
the animal's tail.
But the old woman who was the object of the farmer's suspicion
seemed only busied about the drover, without paying any attention
to the drove. Robin, on the contrary, appeared rather impatient
of her presence.
"What auld-world fancy," he said, "has brought you so early from
the ingle-side this morning, Muhme? l am sure I bid you good-
even, and had your God-speed, last night."
"And left me more siller than the useless old woman will use till
you come back again, bird of my bosom," said the sibyl. "But it
is little I would care for the food that nourishes me, or the
fire that warms me, or for God's blessed sun itself, if aught but
weel should happen to the grandson of my father. So let me walk
the DEASIL round you, that you may go safe out into the far
foreign land, and come safe home."
Robin Oig stopped, half embarrassed, half laughing, and signing
to those around that he only complied with the old woman to
soothe her humour. In the meantime, she traced around him, with
wavering steps, the propitiation, which some have thought has
been derived from the Druidical mythology. It consists, as is
well known, in the person who makes the DEASIL walking three
times round the person who is the object of the ceremony, taking
care to move according to the course of the sun. At once,
however, she stopped short, and exclaimed, in a voice of alarm
and horror, "Grandson of my father, there is blood on your hand."
"Hush, for God's sake, aunt!" said Robin Oig. "You will bring
more trouble on yourself with this TAISHATARAGH" (second sight)
"than you will be able to get out of for many a day."
The old woman only repeated, with a ghastly look, "There is blood
on your hand, and it is English blood. The blood of the Gael is
richer and redder. Let us see--let us--"
Ere Robin Oig could prevent her, which, indeed, could only have
been by positive violence, so hasty and peremptory were her
proceedings, she had drawn from his side the dirk which lodged in
the folds of his plaid, and held it up, exclaiming, although the
weapon gleamed clear and bright in the sun, "Blood, blood--Saxon
blood again. Robin Oig M'Combich, go not this day to England!"
"Prutt, trutt," answered Robin Oig, "that will never do neither
--it would be next thing to running the country. For shame,
Muhme--give me the dirk. You cannot tell by the colour the
difference betwixt the blood of a black bullock and a white one,
and you speak of knowing Saxon from Gaelic blood. All men have
their blood from Adam, Muhme. Give me my skene-dhu, and let me
go on my road. I should have been half way to Stirling brig by
this time. Give me my dirk, and let me go."
"Never will I give it to you," said the old woman--"Never will I
quit my hold on your plaid--unless you promise me not to wear
that unhappy weapon."
The women around him urged him also, saying few of his aunt's
words fell to the ground; and as the Lowland farmers continued to
look moodily on the scene, Robin Oig determined to close it at
any sacrifice.
"Well, then," said the young drover, giving the scabbard of the
weapon to Hugh Morrison, "you Lowlanders care nothing for these
freats. Keep my dirk for me. I cannot give it you, because it
was my father's; but your drove follows ours, and I am content it
should be in your keeping, not in mine.--Will this do, Muhme?"
"It must," said the old woman--"that is, if the Lowlander is mad
enough to carry the knife."
The strong Westlandman laughed aloud.
"Goodwife," said he, "I am Hugh Morrison from Glenae, come of the
Manly Morrisons of auld lang syne, that never took short weapon
against a man in their lives. And neither needed they. They had
their broadswords, and I have this bit supple"--showing a
formidable cudgel; "for dirking ower the board, I leave that to
John Highlandman.--Ye needna snort, none of you Highlanders, and
you in especial, Robin. I'll keep the bit knife, if you are
feared for the auld spaewife's tale, and give it back to you
whenever you want it."
Robin was not particularly pleased with some part of Hugh
Morrison's speech; but he had learned in his travels more
patience than belonged to his Highland constitution originally,
and he accepted the service of the descendant of the Manly
Morrisons without finding fault with the rather depreciating
manner in which it was offered.
"If he had not had his morning in his head, and been but a
Dumfriesshire hog into the boot, he would have spoken more like a
gentleman. But you cannot have more of a sow than a grumph.
It's shame my father's knife should ever slash a haggis for the
like of him."
Thus saying, (but saying it in Gaelic), Robin drove on his
cattle, and waved farewell to all behind him. He was in the
greater haste, because he expected to join at Falkirk a comrade
and brother in profession, with whom he proposed to travel in
company.
Robin Oig's chosen friend was a young Englishman, Harry Wakefield
by name, well known at every northern market, and in his way as
much famed and honoured as our Highland driver of bullocks. He
was nearly six feet high, gallantly formed to keep the rounds at
Smithfield, or maintain the ring at a wrestling match; and
although he might have been overmatched, perhaps, among the
regular professors of the Fancy, yet, as a yokel or rustic, or a
chance customer, he was able to give a bellyful to any amateur of
the pugilistic art. Doncaster races saw him in his glory,
betting his guinea, and generally successfully; nor was there a
main fought in Yorkshire, the feeders being persons of celebrity,
at which he was not to be seen if business permitted. But though
a SPRACK lad, and fond of pleasure and its haunts, Harry
Wakefield was steady, and not the cautious Robin Oig M'Combich
himself was more attentive to the main chance. His holidays were
holidays indeed; but his days of work were dedicated to steady
and persevering labour. In countenance and temper, Wakefield was
the model of Old England's merry yeomen, whose clothyard shafts,
in so many hundred battles, asserted her superiority over the
nations, and whose good sabres, in our own time, are her cheapest
and most assured defence. His mirth was readily excited; for,
strong in limb and constitution, and fortunate in circumstances,
he was disposed to be pleased with every thing about him, and
such difficulties as he might occasionally encounter were, to a
man of his energy, rather matter of amusement than serious
annoyance. With all the merits of a sanguine temper, our young
English drover was not without his defects. He was irascible,
sometimes to the verge of being quarrelsome; and perhaps not the
less inclined to bring his disputes to a pugilistic decision,
because he found few antagonists able to stand up to him in the
boxing ring.
It is difficult to say how Harry Wakefield and Robin Oig first
became intimates, but it is certain a close acquaintance had
taken place betwixt them, although they had apparently few common
subjects of conversation or of interest, so soon as their talk
ceased to be of bullocks. Robin Oig, indeed, spoke the English
language rather imperfectly upon any other topics but stots and
kyloes, and Harry Wakefield could never bring his broad Yorkshire
tongue to utter a single word of Gaelic. It was in vain Robin
spent a whole morning, during a walk over Minch Moor, in
attempting to teach his companion to utter, with true precision,
the shibboleth LLHU, which is the Gaelic for a calf. From
Traquair to Murder Cairn, the hill rung with the discordant
attempts of the Saxon upon the unmanageable monosyllable, and the
heartfelt laugh which followed every failure. They had, however,
better modes of awakening the echoes; for Wakefield could sing
many a ditty to the praise of Moll, Susan, and Cicely, and Robin
Oig had a particular gift at whistling interminable pibrochs
through all their involutions, and what was more agreeable to his
companion's southern ear, knew many of the northern airs, both
lively and pathetic, to which Wakefield learned to pipe a bass.
Thus, though Robin could hardly have comprehended his companion's
stories about horse-racing, and cock-fighting, or fox-hunting,
and although his own legends of clan-fights and CREAGHS, varied
with talk of Highland goblins and fairy folk, would have been
caviare to his companion, they contrived, nevertheless to find a
degree of pleasure in each other's company, which had for three
years back induced them to join company and travel together, when
the direction of their journey permitted. Each, indeed, found
his advantage in this companionship; for where could the
Englishman have found a guide through the Western Highlands like
Robin Oig M'Combich? and when they were on what Harry called the
RIGHT side of the Border, his patronage, which was extensive, and
his purse, which was heavy, were at all times at the service of
his Highland friend, and on many occasions his liberality did him
genuine yeoman's service.
CHAPTER II.
Were ever two such loving friends!--
How could they disagree?
Oh, thus it was, he loved him dear,
And thought how to requite him,
And having no friend left but he,
He did resolve to fight him. DUKE UPON DUKE.
The pair of friends had traversed with their usual cordiality the
grassy wilds of Liddesdale, and crossed the opposite part of
Cumberland, emphatically called The Waste. In these solitary
regions the cattle under the charge of our drovers derived their
subsistence chiefly by picking their food as they went along the
drove-road, or sometimes by the tempting opportunity of a START
AND OWERLOUP, or invasion of the neighbouring pasture, where an
occasion presented itself. But now the scene changed before
them. They were descending towards a fertile and enclosed
country, where no such liberties could be taken with impunity, or
without a previous arrangement and bargain with the possessors of
the ground. This was more especially the case, as a great
northern fair was upon the eve of taking place, where both the
Scotch and English drover expected to dispose of a part of their
cattle, which it was desirable to produce in the market rested
and in good order. Fields were therefore difficult to be
obtained, and only upon high terms. This necessity occasioned a
temporary separation betwixt the two friends, who went to
bargain, each as he could, for the separate accommodation of his
herd. Unhappily it chanced that both of them, unknown to each
other, thought of bargaining for the ground they wanted on the
property of a country gentleman of some fortune, whose estate lay
in the neighbourhood. The English drover applied to the bailiff
on the property, who was known to him. It chanced that the
Cumbrian Squire, who had entertained some suspicions of his
manager's honesty, was taking occasional measures to ascertain
how far they were well founded, and had desired that any
enquiries about his enclosures, with a view to occupy them for a
temporary purpose, should be referred to himself. As however,
Mr. Ireby had gone the day before upon a journey of some miles
distance to the northward, the bailiff chose to consider the
check upon his full powers as for the time removed, and concluded
that he should best consult his master's interest, and perhaps
his own, in making an agreement with Harry Wakefield. Meanwhile,
ignorant of what his comrade was doing, Robin Oig, on his side,
chanced to be overtaken by a good-looking smart little man upon a
pony, most knowingly hogged and cropped, as was then the fashion,
the rider wearing tight leather breeches, and long-necked bright
spurs. This cavalier asked one or two pertinent questions about
markets and the price of stock. So Robin, seeing him a well-
judging civil gentleman, took the freedom to ask him whether he
could let him know if there was any grass-land to be let in that
neighbourhood, for the temporary accommodation of his drove. He
could not have put the question to more willing ears. The
gentleman of the buckskins was the proprietor, with whose bailiff
Harry Wakefield had dealt, or was in the act of dealing.
"Thou art in good luck, my canny Scot," said Mr. Ireby, "to have
spoken to me, for I see thy cattle have done their day's work,
and I have at my disposal the only field within three miles that
is to be let in these parts."
"The drove can pe gang two, three, four miles very pratty weel
indeed"--said the cautious Highlander; "put what would his honour
pe axing for the peasts pe the head, if she was to tak the park
for twa or three days?"
"We won't differ, Sawney, if you let me have six stots for
winterers, in the way of reason."
"And which peasts wad your honour pe for having?"
"Why--let me see--the two black--the dun one--yon doddy--him with
the twisted horn--the brockit--How much by the head?"
"Ah," said Robin, "your honour is a shudge--a real shudge. I
couldna have set off the pest six peasts petter mysel'--me that
ken them as if they were my pairns, puir things."
"Well, how much per head, Sawney?" continued Mr. Ireby.
"It was high markets at Doune and Falkirk," answered Robin.
And thus the conversation proceeded, until they had agreed on the
PRIX JUSTE for the bullocks, the Squire throwing in the temporary
accommodation of the enclosure for the cattle into the boot, and
Robin making, as he thought, a very good bargain, provided the
grass was but tolerable. The Squire walked his pony alongside of
the drove, partly to show him the way, and see him put into
possession of the field, and partly to learn the latest news of
the northern markets.
They arrived at the field, and the pasture seemed excellent. But
what was their surprise when they saw the bailiff quietly
inducting the cattle of Harry Wakefield into the grassy Goshen
which had just been assigned to those of Robin Oig M'Combich by
the proprietor himself! Squire Ireby set spurs to his horse,
dashed up to his servant, and learning what had passed between
the parties, briefly informed the English drover that his bailiff
had let the ground without his authority, and that he might seek
grass for his cattle wherever he would, since he was to get none
there. At the same time he rebuked his servant severely for
having transgressed his commands, and ordered him instantly to
assist in ejecting the hungry and weary cattle of Harry
Wakefield, which were just beginning to enjoy a meal of unusual
plenty, and to introduce those of his comrade, whom the English
drover now began to consider as a rival.
The feelings which arose in Wakefield's mind would have induced
him to resist Mr. Ireby's decision; but every Englishman has a
tolerably accurate sense of law and justice, and John
Fleecebumpkin, the bailiff, having acknowledged that he had
exceeded his commission, Wakefield saw nothing else for it than
to collect his hungry and disappointed charge, and drive them on
to seek quarters elsewhere. Robin Oig saw what had happened with
regret, and hastened to offer to his English friend to share with
him the disputed possession. But Wakefield's pride was severely
hurt, and he answered disdainfully, "Take it all, man--take it
all; never make two bites of a cherry. Thou canst talk over the
gentry, and blear a plain man's eye. Out upon you, man. I would
not kiss any man's dirty latchets for leave to bake in his oven."
Robin Oig, sorry but not surprised at his comrade's displeasure,
hastened to entreat his friend to wait but an hour till he had
gone to the Squire's house to receive payment for the cattle he
had sold, and he would come back and help him to drive the cattle
into some convenient place of rest, and explain to him the whole
mistake they had both of them fallen into. But the Englishman
continued indignant: "Thou hast been selling, hast thou? Ay,
ay; thou is a cunning lad for kenning the hours of bargaining.
Go to the devil with thyself, for I will ne'er see thy fause
loon's visage again--thou should be ashamed to look me in the
face."
"I am ashamed to look no man in the face," said Robin Oig,
something moved; "and, moreover, I will look you in the face this
blessed day, if you will bide at the Clachan down yonder."
"Mayhap you had as well keep away," said his comrade; and turning
his back on his former friend, he collected his unwilling
associates, assisted by the bailiff, who took some real and some
affected interest in seeing Wakefield accommodated.
After spending some time in negotiating with more than one of the
neighbouring farmers, who could not, or would not, afford the
accommodation desired, Henry Wakefield at last, and in his
necessity, accomplished his point by means of the landlord of the
alehouse at which Robin Oig and he had agreed to pass the night,
when they first separated from each other. Mine host was content
to let him turn his cattle on a piece of barren moor, at a price
little less than the bailiff had asked for the disputed
enclosure; and the wretchedness of the pasture, as well as the
price paid for it, were set down as exaggerations of the breach
of faith and friendship of his Scottish crony. This turn of
Wakefield's passions was encouraged by the bailiff, (who had his
own reasons for being offended against poor Robin, as having been
the unwitting cause of his falling into disgrace with his
master), as well as by the innkeeper, and two or three chance
guests, who stimulated the drover in his resentment against his
quondam associate--some from the ancient grudge against the
Scots, which, when it exists anywhere, is to be found lurking in
the Border counties, and some from the general love of mischief,
which characterises mankind in all ranks of life, to the honour
of Adam's children be it spoken. Good John Barleycorn also, who
always heightens and exaggerates the prevailing passions, be they
angry or kindly, was not wanting in his offices on this occasion,
and confusion to false friends and hard masters was pledged in
more than one tankard.
In the meanwhile Mr. Ireby found some amusement in detaining the
northern drover at his ancient hall. He caused a cold round of
beef to be placed before the Scot in the butler's pantry,
together with a foaming tankard of home-brewed, and took pleasure
in seeing the hearty appetite with which these unwonted edibles
were discussed by Robin Oig M'Combich. The Squire himself
lighting his pipe, compounded between his patrician dignity and
his love of agricultural gossip, by walking up and down while he
conversed with his guest.
"I passed another drove," said the Squire, with one of your
countrymen behind them. They were something less beasts than
your drove--doddies most of them. A big man was with them. None
of your kilts, though, but a decent pair of breeches. D'ye know
who he may be?"
"Hout aye; that might, could, and would be Hughie Morrison. I
didna think he could hae peen sae weel up. He has made a day on
us; but his Argyleshires will have wearied shanks. How far was
he pehind?"
"I think about six or seven miles," answered the Squire, "for I
passed them at the Christenbury Crag, and I overtook you at the
Hollan Bush. If his beasts be leg-weary, he will be maybe
selling bargains."
"Na, na, Hughie Morrison is no the man for pargains--ye maun come
to some Highland body like Robin Oig hersel' for the like of
these. Put I maun pe wishing you goot night, and twenty of them,
let alane ane, and I maun down to the Clachan to see if the lad
Harry Waakfelt is out of his humdudgeons yet."
The party at the alehouse were still in full talk, and the
treachery of Robin Oig still the theme of conversation, when the
supposed culprit entered the apartment. His arrival, as usually
happens in such a case, put an instant stop to the discussion of
which he had furnished the subject, and he was received by the
company assembled with that chilling silence which, more than a
thousand exclamations, tells an intruder that he is unwelcome.
Surprised and offended, but not appalled by the reception which
he experienced, Robin entered with an undaunted and even a
haughty air, attempted no greeting, as he saw he was received
with none, and placed himself by the side of the fire, a little
apart from a table at which Harry Wakefield, the bailiff, and two
or three other persons, were seated. The ample Cumbrian kitchen
would have afforded plenty of room, even for a larger separation.
Robin thus seated, proceeded to light his pipe, and call for a
pint of twopenny.
"We have no twopence ale," answered Ralph Heskett the landlord;
"but as thou find'st thy own tobacco, it's like thou mayst find
thy own liquor too--it's the wont of thy country, I wot."
"Shame, goodman," said the landlady, a blithe, bustling
housewife, hastening herself to supply the guest with liquor.
"Thou knowest well enow what the strange man wants, and it's thy
trade to be civil, man. Thou shouldst know, that if the Scot
likes a small pot, he pays a sure penny."
Without taking any notice of this nuptial dialogue, the
Highlander took the flagon in his hand, and addressing the
company generally, drank the interesting toast of "Good markets"
to the party assembled.
"The better that the wind blew fewer dealers from the north,"
said one of the farmers, "and fewer Highland runts to eat up the
English meadows."
"Saul of my pody, put you are wrang there, my friend," answered
Robin, with composure; "it is your fat Englishmen that eat up our
Scots cattle, puir things."
"I wish there was a summat to eat up their drovers," said
another; "a plain Englishman canna make bread within a kenning of
them."
"Or an honest servant keep his master's favour but they will come
sliding in between him and the sunshine," said the bailiff.
"If these pe jokes," said Robin Oig, with the same composure,
"there is ower mony jokes upon one man."
"It is no joke, but downright earnest," said the bailiff.
"Harkye, Mr. Robin Ogg, or whatever is your name, it's right we
should tell you that we are all of one opinion, and that is, that
you, Mr. Robin Ogg, have behaved to our friend Mr. Harry
Wakefield here, like a raff and a blackguard."
"Nae doubt, nae doubt," answered Robin, with great composure;
"and you are a set of very pretty judges, for whose prains or
pehaviour I wad not gie a pinch of sneeshing. If Mr. Harry
Waakfelt kens where he is wranged, he kens where he may be
righted."
"He speaks truth," said Wakefield, who had listened to what
passed, divided between the offence which he had taken at Robin's
late behaviour, and the revival of his habitual feelings of
regard.
He now rose, and went towards Robin, who got up from his seat as
he approached, and held out his hand.
"That's right, Harry--go it--serve him out," resounded on all
sides--"tip him the nailer--show him the mill."
"Hold your peace all of you, and be--," said Wakefield; and then
addressing his comrade, he took him by the extended hand, with
something alike of respect and defiance. "Robin," he said, "thou
hast used me ill enough this day; but if you mean, like a frank
fellow, to shake hands, and take a tussle for love on the sod,
why I'll forgie thee, man, and we shall be better friends than
ever."
"And would it not pe petter to pe cood friends without more of
the matter?" said Robin; "we will be much petter friendships
with our panes hale than proken."
Harry Wakefield dropped the hand of his friend, or rather threw
it from him.
"I did not think I had been keeping company for three years with
a coward."
"Coward pelongs to none of my name," said Robin, whose eyes began
to kindle, but keeping the command of his temper. "It was no
coward's legs or hands, Harry Waakfelt, that drew you out of the
fords of Frew, when you was drifting ower the plack rock, and
every eel in the river expected his share of you."
"And that is true enough, too," said the Englishman, struck by
the appeal.
"Adzooks!" exclaimed the bailiff--"sure Harry Wakefield, the
nattiest lad at Whitson Tryste, Wooler Fair, Carlisle Sands, or
Stagshaw Bank, is not going to show white feather? Ah, this
comes of living so long with kilts and bonnets--men forget the
use of their daddles."
"I may teach you, Master Fleecebumpkin, that I have not lost the
use of mine," said Wakefield and then went on. "This will never
do, Robin. We must have a turn-up, or we shall be the talk of
the country-side. I'll be d--d if I hurt thee--I'll put on the
gloves gin thou like. Come, stand forward like a man."
"To be peaten like a dog," said Robin; "is there any reason in
that? If you think I have done you wrong, I'll go before your
shudge, though I neither know his law nor his language."
A general cry of "No, no--no law, no lawyer! a bellyful and be
friends," was echoed by the bystanders.
"But," continued Robin, "if I am to fight, I have no skill to
fight like a jackanapes, with hands and nails."
"How would you fight then?" said his antagonist; "though I am
thinking it would be hard to bring you to the scratch anyhow."
"I would fight with proadswords, and sink point on the first
plood drawn--like a gentlemans."
A loud shout of laughter followed the proposal, which indeed had
rather escaped from poor Robin's swelling heart, than been the
dictate of his sober judgment.
"Gentleman, quotha!" was echoed on all sides, with a shout of
unextinguishable laughter; "a very pretty gentleman, God wot.
--Canst get two swords for the gentleman to fight with, Ralph
Heskett?"
"No, but I can send to the armoury at Carlisle, and lend them two
forks, to be making shift with in the meantime."
"Tush, man," said another, "the bonny Scots come into the world
with the blue bonnet on their heads, and dirk and pistol at their
belt."
"Best send post," said Mr. Fleecebumpkin, "to the Squire of Corby
Castle, to come and stand second to the GENTLEMAN."
In the midst of this torrent of general ridicule, the Highlander
instinctively griped beneath the folds of his plaid,
"But it's better not," he said in his own language. "A hundred
curses on the swine-eaters, who know neither decency nor
civility!"
"Make room, the pack of you," he said, advancing to the door.
But his former friend interposed his sturdy bulk, and opposed his
leaving the house; and when Robin Oig attempted to make his way
by force, he hit him down on the floor, with as much ease as a
boy bowls down a nine-pin.
"A ring, a ring!" was now shouted, until the dark rafters, and
the hams that hung on them, trembled again, and the very platters
on the BINK clattered against each other. "Well done, Harry"
--"Give it him home, Harry"--"Take care of him now--he sees his
own blood!"
Such were the exclamations, while the Highlander, starting from
the ground, all his coldness and caution lost in frantic rage,
sprung at his antagonist with the fury, the activity, and the
vindictive purpose of an incensed tiger-cat. But when could rage
encounter science and temper? Robin Oig again went down in the
unequal contest; and as the blow was necessarily a severe one, he
lay motionless on the floor of the kitchen. The landlady ran to
offer some aid, but Mr. Fleecebumpkin would not permit her to
approach.
"Let him alone," he said, "he will come to within time, and come
up to the scratch again. He has not got half his broth yet."
"He has got all I mean to give him, though," said his antagonist,
whose heart began to relent towards his old associate; "and I
would rather by half give the rest to yourself, Mr.
Fleecebumpkin, for you pretend to know a thing or two, and Robin
had not art enough even to peel before setting to, but fought
with his plaid dangling about him.--Stand up, Robin, my man! All
friends now; and let me hear the man that will speak a word
against you, or your country, for your sake."
Robin Oig was still under the dominion of his passion, and eager
to renew the onset; but being withheld on the one side by the
peacemaking Dame Heskett, and on the other, aware that Wakefield
no longer meant to renew the combat, his fury sunk into gloomy
sullenness.
"Come, come, never grudge so much at it, man," said the brave-
spirited Englishman, with the placability of his country; "shake
hands, and we will be better friends than ever."
"Friends!" exclaimed Robin Oig with strong emphasis--"friends!
Never. Look to yourself, Harry Waakfelt."
"Then the curse of Cromwell on your proud Scots stomach, as the
man says in the play, and you may do your worst, and be d--d; for
one man can say nothing more to another after a tussle, than that
he is sorry for it."
On these terms the friends parted. Robin Oig drew out, in
silence, a piece of money, threw it on the table, and then left
the alehouse. But turning at the door, he shook his hand at
Wakefield, pointing with his forefinger upwards, in a manner
which might imply either a threat or a caution. He then
disappeared in the moonlight.
Some words passed after his departure, between the bailiff, who
piqued himself on being a little of a bully, and Harry Wakefield,
who, with generous inconsistency, was now not indisposed to begin
a new combat in defence of Robin Oig's reputation, "although he
could not use his daddles like an Englishman, as it did not come
natural to him." But Dame Heskett prevented this second quarrel
from coming to a head by her peremptory interference. "There
should be no more fighting in her house," she said; "there had
been too much already.--And you, Mr. Wakefield, may live to
learn," she added, "what it is to make a deadly enemy out of a
good friend."
"Pshaw, dame! Robin Oig is an honest fellow, and will never keep
malice."
"Do not trust to that; you do not know the dour temper of the
Scots, though you have dealt with them so often. I have a right
to know them, my mother being a Scot."
"And so is well seen on her daughter," said Ralph Heskett.
This nuptial sarcasm gave the discourse another turn. Fresh
customers entered the tap-room or kitchen, and others left it.
The conversation turned on the expected markets, and the report
of prices from different parts both of Scotland and England.
Treaties were commenced, and Harry Wakefield was lucky enough to
find a chap for a part of his drove, and at a very considerable
profit--an event of consequence more than sufficient to blot out
all remembrances of the unpleasant scuffle in the earlier part of
the day. But there remained one party from whose mind that
recollection could not have been wiped away by the possession of
every head of cattle betwixt Esk and Eden.
This was Robin Oig M'Combich. "That I should have had no
weapon," he said, "and for the first time in my life! Blighted
be the tongue that bids the Highlander part with the dirk. The
dirk--ha! the English blood! My Muhme's word! When did her
word fall to the ground?"
The recollection of the fatal prophecy confirmed the deadly
intention which instantly sprang up in his mind.
"Ha! Morrison cannot be many miles behind; and if it were an
hundred, what then?"
His impetuous spirit had now a fixed purpose and motive of
action, and he turned the light foot of his country towards the
wilds, through which he knew, by Mr. Ireby's report, that
Morrison was advancing. His mind was wholly engrossed by the
sense of injury--injury sustained from a friend; and by the
desire of vengeance on one whom he now accounted his most bitter
enemy. The treasured ideas of self-importance and self-opinion
--of ideal birth and quality, had become more precious to him,
(like the hoard to the miser) because he could only enjoy them in
secret. But that hoard was pillaged--the idols which he had
secretly worshipped had been desecrated and profaned. Insulted,
abused, and beaten, he was no longer worthy, in his own opinion,
of the name he bore, or the lineage which he belonged to.
Nothing was left to him--nothing but revenge; and as the
reflection added a galling spur to every step, he determined it
should be as sudden and signal as the offence.
When Robin Oig left the door of the alehouse, seven or eight
English miles at least lay betwixt Morrison and him. The advance
of the former was slow, limited by the sluggish pace of his
cattle; the latter left behind him stubble-field and hedgerow,
crag and dark heath, all glittering with frost-rime in the broad
November moonlight, at the rate of six miles an hour. And now
the distant lowing of Morrison's cattle is heard; and now they
are seen creeping like moles in size and slowness of motion on
the broad face of the moor; and now he meets them--passes them,
and stops their conductor.
"May good betide us," said the Westlander. "Is this you, Robin
M'Combich, or your wraith?"
"It is Robin Oig M'Combich," answered the Highlander, "and it is
not. But never mind that, put pe giving me the skene-dhu."
"What! you are for back to the Highlands! The devil! Have you
selt all off before the fair? This beats all for quick markets!"
"I have not sold--I am not going north--maype I will never go
north again. Give me pack my dirk, Hugh Morrison, or there will
pe words petween us."
"Indeed, Robin, I'll be better advised before I gie it back to
you; it is a wanchancy weapon in a Highlandman's hand, and I am
thinking you will be about some harns-breaking."
"Prutt, trutt! let me have my weapon," said Robin Oig
impatiently.
"Hooly and fairly," said his well-meaning friend. "I'll tell you
what will do better than these dirking doings. Ye ken
Highlander, and Lowlander, and Border-men are a' ae man's bairns
when you are over the Scots dyke. See, the Eskdale callants, and
fighting Charlie of Liddesdale, and the Lockerby lads, and the
four Dandies of Lustruther, and a wheen mair grey plaids, are
coming up behind; and if you are wranged, there is the hand of a
Manly Morrison, we'll see you righted, if Carlisle and Stanwix
baith took up the feud."
"To tell you the truth," said Robin Oig, desirous of eluding the
suspicions of his friend, "I have enlisted with a party of the
Black Watch, and must march off to-morrow morning."
"Enlisted! Were you mad or drunk? You must buy yourself off. I
can lend you twenty notes, and twenty to that, if the drove
sell."
"I thank you--thank ye, Hughie; but I go with good-will the gate
that I am going. So the dirk, the dirk!"
"There it is for you then, since less wunna serve. But think on
what I was saying. Waes me, it will be sair news in the braes of
Balquidder that Robin Oig M'Combich should have run an ill gate,
and ta'en on."
"Ill news in Balquidder, indeed!" echoed poor Robin. "But Cot
speed you, Hughie, and send you good marcats. Ye winna meet with
Robin Oig again, either at tryste or fair."
So saying, he shook hastily the hand of his acquaintance, and set
out in the direction from which he had advanced, with the spirit
of his former pace.
"There is something wrang with the lad," muttered the Morrison to
himself; "but we will maybe see better into it the morn's
morning."
But long ere the morning dawned, the catastrophe of our tale had
taken place. It was two hours after the affray had happened, and
it was totally forgotten by almost every one, when Robin Oig
returned to Heskett's inn. The place was filled at once by
various sorts of men, and with noises corresponding to their
character. There were the grave low sounds of men engaged in
busy traffic, with the laugh, the song, and the riotous jest of
those who had nothing to do but to enjoy themselves. Among the
last was Harry Wakefield, who, amidst a grinning group of smock-
frocks, hobnailed shoes, and jolly English physiognomies, was
trolling forth the old ditty,--
"What though my name be Roger,
Who drives the plough and cart--"
when he was interrupted by a well-known voice saying in a high
and stern voice, marked by the sharp Highland accent, "Harry
Waakfelt--if you be a man stand up!"
"What is the matter?--what is it?" the guests demanded of each
other.
"It is only a d--d Scotsman," said Fleecebumpkin, who was by this
time very drunk, "whom Harry Wakefield helped to his broth to-
day, who is now come to have HIS CAULD KAIL het again."
"Harry Waakfelt," repeated the same ominous summons, "stand up,
if you be a man!"
There is something in the tone of deep and concentrated passion,
which attracts attention and imposes awe, even by the very sound.
The guests shrunk back on every side, and gazed at the Highlander
as he stood in the middle of them, his brows bent, and his
features rigid with resolution.
"I will stand up with all my heart, Robin, my boy, but it shall
be to shake hands with you, and drink down all unkindness. It is
not the fault of your heart, man, that you don't know how to
clench your hands."
By this time he stood opposite to his antagonist, his open and
unsuspecting look strangely contrasted with the stern purpose,
which gleamed wild, dark, and vindictive in the eyes of the
Highlander.
"'Tis not thy fault, man, that, not having the luck to be an
Englishman, thou canst not fight more than a school-girl."
"I can fight," answered Robin Oig sternly, but calmly, "and you
shall know it. You, Harry Waakfelt, showed me to-day how the
Saxon churls fight; I show you now how the Highland Dunnie-wassel
fights."
He seconded the word with the action, and plunged the dagger,
which he suddenly displayed, into the broad breast of the English
yeoman, with such fatal certainty and force that the hilt made a
hollow sound against the breast-bone, and the double-edged point
split the very heart of his victim. Harry Wakefield fell and
expired with a single groan. His assassin next seized the
bailiff by the collar, and offered the bloody poniard to his
throat, whilst dread and surprise rendered the man incapable of
defence.
"It were very just to lay you peside him," he said, "but the
blood of a pase pickthank shall never mix on my father's dirk,
with that of a brave man."
As he spoke, he cast the man from him with so much force that he
fell on the floor, while Robin, with his other hand, threw the
fatal weapon into the blazing turf-fire.
"There," he said, "take me who likes--and let fire cleanse blood
if it can."
The pause of astonishment still continuing, Robin Oig asked for a
peace-officer, and a constable having stepped out, he surrendered
himself to his custody.
"A bloody night's work you have made of it," said the constable.
"Your own fault," said the Highlander. "Had you kept his hands
off me twa hours since, he would have been now as well and merry
as he was twa minutes since."
"It must be sorely answered," said the peace-officer.
"Never you mind that--death pays all debts; it will pay that
too."
The horror of the bystanders began now to give way to
indignation, and the sight of a favourite companion murdered in
the midst of them, the provocation being, in their opinion, so
utterly inadequate to the excess of vengeance, might have induced
them to kill the perpetrator of the deed even upon the very spot.
The constable, however, did his duty on this occasion, and with
the assistance of some of the more reasonable persons present,
procured horses to guard the prisoner to Carlisle, to abide his
doom at the next assizes. While the escort was preparing, the
prisoner neither expressed the least interest, nor attempted the
slightest reply. Only, before he was carried from the fatal
apartment, he desired to look at the dead body, which, raised
from the floor, had been deposited upon the large table (at the
head of which Harry Wakefield had presided but a few minutes
before, full of life, vigour, and animation), until the surgeons
should examine the mortal wound. The face of the corpse was
decently covered with a napkin. To the surprise and horror of
the bystanders, which displayed itself in a general AH! drawn
through clenched teeth and half-shut lips, Robin Oig removed the
cloth, and gazed with a mournful but steady eye on the lifeless
visage, which had been so lately animated that the smile of good-
humoured confidence in his own strength, of conciliation at once
and contempt towards his enemy, still curled his lip. While
those present expected that the wound, which had so lately
flooded the apartment with gore, would send forth fresh streams
at the touch of the homicide, Robin Oig replaced the covering
with the brief exclamation, "He was a pretty man!"
My story is nearly ended. The unfortunate Highlander stood his
trial at Carlisle. I was myself present, and as a young Scottish
lawyer, or barrister at least, and reputed a man of some quality,
the politeness of the Sheriff of Cumberland offered me a place on
the bench. The facts of the case were proved in the manner I
have related them; and whatever might be at first the prejudice
of the audience against a crime so un-English as that of
assassination from revenge, yet when the rooted national
prejudices of the prisoner had been explained, which made him
consider himself as stained with indelible dishonour, when
subjected to personal violence--when his previous patience,
moderation, and endurance were considered--the generosity of the
English audience was inclined to regard his crime as the wayward
aberration of a false idea of honour rather than as flowing from
a heart naturally savage, or perverted by habitual vice. I shall
never forget the charge of the venerable judge to the jury,
although not at that time liable to be much affected either by
that which was eloquent or pathetic.
"We have had," he said, "in the previous part of our duty"
(alluding to some former trials), "to discuss crimes which infer
disgust and abhorrence, while they call down the well-merited
vengeance of the law. It is now our still more melancholy task
to apply its salutary though severe enactments to a case of a
very singular character, in which the crime (for a crime it is,
and a deep one) arose less out of the malevolence of the heart,
than the error of the understanding--less from any idea of
committing wrong, than from an unhappily perverted notion of that
which is right. Here we have two men, highly esteemed, it has
been stated, in their rank of life, and attached, it seems, to
each other as friends, one of whose lives has been already
sacrificed to a punctilio, and the other is about to prove the
vengeance of the offended laws; and yet both may claim our
commiseration at least, as men acting in ignorance of each
other's national prejudices, and unhappily misguided rather than
voluntarily erring from the path of right conduct.
"In the original cause of the misunderstanding, we must in
justice give the right to the prisoner at the bar. He had
acquired possession of the enclosure, which was the object of
competition, by a legal contract with the proprietor, Mr. Ireby;
and yet, when accosted with reproaches undeserved in themselves,
and galling, doubtless, to a temper at least sufficiently
susceptible of passion, he offered notwithstanding, to yield up
half his acquisition, for the sake of peace and good
neighbourhood, and his amicable proposal was rejected with scorn.
Then follows the scene at Mr. Heskett the publican's, and you
will observe how the stranger was treated by the deceased, and, I
am sorry to observe, by those around, who seem to have urged him
in a manner which was aggravating in the highest degree. While
he asked for peace and for composition, and offered submission to
a magistrate, or to a mutual arbiter, the prisoner was insulted
by a whole company, who seem on this occasion to have forgotten
the national maxim of 'fair play;' and while attempting to escape
from the place in peace, he was intercepted, struck down, and
beaten to the effusion of his blood.
"Gentlemen of the jury, it was with some impatience that I heard
my learned brother who opened the case for the crown give an
unfavourable turn to the prisoner's conduct on this occasion. He
said the prisoner was afraid to encounter his antagonist in fair
fight, or to submit to the laws of the ring; and that therefore,
like a cowardly Italian, he had recourse to his fatal stiletto,
to murder the man whom he dared not meet in manly encounter. I
observed the prisoner shrink from this part of the accusation
with the abhorrence natural to a brave man; and as I would wish
to make my words impressive when I point his real crime, I must
secure his opinion of my impartiality by rebutting everything
that seems to me a false accusation. There can be no doubt that
the prisoner is a man of resolution--too much resolution. I wish
to Heaven that he had less--or, rather that he had had a better
education to regulate it.
"Gentlemen, as to the laws my brother talks of, they may be known
in the bull-ring, or the bear-garden, or the cock-pit, but they
are not known here. Or, if they should be so far admitted as
furnishing a species of proof that no malice was intended in this
sort of combat, from which fatal accidents do sometimes arise, it
can only be so admitted when both parties are IN PARI CASU,
equally acquainted with, and equally willing to refer themselves
to, that species of arbitrament. But will it be contended that a
man of superior rank and education is to be subjected, or is
obliged to subject himself, to this coarse and brutal strife,
perhaps in opposition to a younger, stronger, or more skilful
opponent? Certainly even the pugilistic code, if founded upon
the fair play of Merry Old England, as my brother alleges it to
be, can contain nothing so preposterous. And, gentlemen of the
jury, if the laws would support an English gentleman, wearing, we
will suppose, his sword, in defending himself by force against a
violent personal aggression of the nature offered to this
prisoner, they will not less protect a foreigner and a stranger,
involved in the same unpleasing circumstances. If, therefore,
gentlemen of the jury, when thus pressed by a VIS MAJOR, the
object of obloquy to a whole company, and of direct violence from
one at least, and, as he might reasonably apprehend, from more,
the panel had produced the weapon which his countrymen, as we are
informed, generally carry about their persons, and the same
unhappy circumstance had ensued which you have heard detailed in
evidence, I could not in my conscience have asked from you a
verdict of murder. The prisoner's personal defence might indeed,
even in that case, have gone more or less beyond the MODERAMEN
INCULPATAE TUTELAE, spoken of by lawyers; but the punishment
incurred would have been that of manslaughter, not of murder. I
beg leave to add that I should have thought this milder species
of charge was demanded in the case supposed, notwithstanding the
statute of James I. cap. 8, which takes the case of slaughter by
stabbing with a short weapon, even without MALICE PREPENSE, out
of the benefit of clergy. For this statute of stabbing, as it is
termed, arose out of a temporary cause; and as the real guilt is
the same, whether the slaughter be committed by the dagger, or by
sword or pistol, the benignity of the modern law places them all
on the same, or nearly the same, footing.
"But, gentlemen of the jury, the pinch of the case lies in the
interval of two hours interposed betwixt the reception of the
injury and the fatal retaliation. In the heat of affray and
CHAUDE MELEE, law, compassionating the infirmities of humanity,
makes allowance for the passions which rule such a stormy moment
--for the sense of present pain, for the apprehension of further
injury, for the difficulty of ascertaining with due accuracy the
precise degree of violence which is necessary to protect the
person of the individual, without annoying or injuring the
assailant more than is absolutely necessary. But the time
necessary to walk twelve miles, however speedily performed, was
an interval sufficient for the prisoner to have recollected
himself; and the violence with which he carried his purpose into
effect, with so many circumstances of deliberate determination,
could neither be induced by the passion of anger, nor that of
fear. It was the purpose and the act of predetermined revenge,
for which law neither can, will, nor ought to have sympathy or
allowance.
"It is true, we may repeat to ourselves, in alleviation of this
poor man's unhappy action, that his case is a very peculiar one.
The country which he inhabits was, in the days of many now alive,
inaccessible to the laws, not only of England, which have not
even yet penetrated thither, but to those to which our neighbours
of Scotland are subjected, and which must be supposed to be, and
no doubt actually are, founded upon the general principles of
justice and equity which pervade every civilized country.
Amongst their mountains, as among the North American Indians, the
various tribes were wont to make war upon each other, so that
each man was obliged to go armed for his own protection. These
men, from the ideas which they entertained of their own descent
and of their own consequence, regarded themselves as so many
cavaliers or men-at-arms, rather than as the peasantry of a
peaceful country. Those laws of the ring, as my brother terms
them, were unknown to the race of warlike mountaineers; that
decision of quarrels by no other weapons than those which nature
has given every man must to them have seemed as vulgar and as
preposterous as to the NOBLESSE of France. Revenge, on the other
hand, must have been as familiar to their habits of society as to
those of the Cherokees or Mohawks. It is indeed, as described by
Bacon, at bottom a kind of wild untutored justice; for the fear
of retaliation must withhold the hands of the oppressor where
there is no regular law to check daring violence. But though all
this may be granted, and though we may allow that, such having
been the case of the Highlands in the days of the prisoner's
fathers, many of the opinions and sentiments must still continue
to influence the present generation, it cannot, and ought not,
even in this most painful case, to alter the administration of
the law, either in your hands, gentlemen of the jury, or in mine.
The first object of civilisation is to place the general
protection of the law, equally administered, in the room of that
wild justice which every man cut and carved for himself,
according to the length of his sword and the strength of his arm.
The law says to the subjects, with a voice only inferior to that
of the Deity, 'Vengeance is mine.' The instant that there is time
for passion to cool, and reason to interpose, an injured party
must become aware that the law assumes the exclusive cognisance
of the right and wrong betwixt the parties, and opposes her
inviolable buckler to every attempt of the private party to right
himself. I repeat that this unhappy man ought personally to be
the object rather of our pity than our abhorrence, for he failed
in his ignorance, and from mistaken notions of honour. But his
crime is not the less that of murder, gentlemen, and, in your
high and important office, it is your duty so to find.
Englishmen have their angry passions as well as Scots; and should
this man's action remain unpunished, you may unsheath, under
various pretences, a thousand daggers betwixt the Land's-End and
the Orkneys."
The venerable Judge thus ended what, to judge by his apparent
emotion, and by the tears which filled his eyes, was really a
painful task. The jury, according to his instructions, brought
in a verdict of Guilty; and Robin Oig M'Combich, ALIAS McGregor,
was sentenced to death, and left for execution, which took place
accordingly. He met his fate with great firmness, and
acknowledged the justice of his sentence. But he repelled
indignantly the observations of those who accused him of
attacking an unarmed man. "I give a life for the life I took,"
he said, "and what can I do more?" [See Note 11.--Robert Donn's
Poems.]
*
NOTES.
NOTES TO CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGATE.
Note 1.--HOLYROOD.
The reader may be gratified with Hector Boece's narrative of the
original foundation of the famous abbey of Holyrood, or the Holy
Cross, as given in Bellenden's translation:--
"Eftir death of Alexander the first, his brothir David come out
of Ingland, and wes crownit at Scone, the yeir of God MCXXIV
yeiris, and did gret justice, eftir his coronation, in all partis
of his realme. He had na weris during the time of King Hary; and
wes so pietuous, that he sat daylie in judgement, to caus his
pure commonis to have justice; and causit the actionis of his
noblis to be decidit be his othir jugis. He gart ilk juge redres
the skaithis that come to the party be his wrang sentence; throw
quhilk, he decorit his realm with mony nobil actis, and ejeckit
the vennomus custome of riotus cheir, quhilk wes inducit afore be
Inglismen, quhen thay com with Quene Margaret; for the samin wes
noisum to al gud maneris, makand his pepil tender and effeminat.
"In the fourt yeir of his regne, this nobill prince come to visie
the madin Castell of Edinburgh. At this time, all the boundis of
Scotland were ful of woddis, lesouris, and medois; for the
countre wes more gevin to store of bestiall, than ony productioun
of cornis; and about this castell was ane gret forest, full of
haris, hindis, toddis, and siclike maner of beistis. Now was the
Rude Day cumin, called the Exaltation of the Croce; and, becaus
the samin wes ane hie solempne day, the king past to his
contemplation. Eftir the messis wer done with maist solempnitie
and reverence, comperit afore him mony young and insolent baronis
of Scotland, richt desirus to haif sum plesur and solace, be
chace of hundis in the said forest. At this time wes with the
king ane man of singulare and devoit life, namit Alkwine, channon
eftir the ordour of Sanct Augustine, quhilk well lang time
confessoure, afore, to King David in Ingland, the time that he
wes Erle of Huntingtoun and Northumbirland. This religious man
dissuadit the king, be mony reasonis, to pas to this huntis; and
allegit the day wes so solempne, be reverence of the haly croce,
that he suld gif him erar, for that day, to contemplation, than
ony othir exersition. Nochtheles, his dissuasion is litill
avalit; for the king wes finallie so provokit, be inoportune
solicitatioun of his baronis, that he past, nochtwithstanding the
solempnite of this day, to his hountis. At last, quhen he wes
cumin throw the vail that lyis to the gret eist fra the said
castell, quhare now lyis the Canongait, the staik past throw the
wod with sic noyis and din of rachis and bugillis, that all the
bestis were rasit fra thair dennis. Now wes the king cumin to
the fute of the crag, and all his nobilis severit, heir and
thair, fra him, at thair game and solace; quhen suddenlie apperit
to his sicht the fairist hart that evir wes sene afore with
levand creature. The noyis and din of this hart rinnand, as
apperit, with awful and braid tindis, maid the kingis hors so
effrayit, that na renzeis micht hald him, bot ran, perforce, ouir
mire and mossis, away with the king. Nochtheles, the hart
followit so fast, that he dang baith the king and his hors to the
ground. Than the king kest abak his handis betwix the tindis of
this hart, to haif savit him fra the strak thairof; and the haly
croce slaid, incontinent, in his handis. The hart fled away with
gret violence, and evanist in the same place quhare now springis
the Rude Well. The pepil richt affrayitly, returnit to him out
of all partis of the wod, to comfort him efter his trubill; and
fell on kneis, devotly adoring the haly croce; for it was not
cumin but sum hevinly providence, as weill apperis; for thair is
na man can schaw of quhat mater it is of, metal or tre. Sone
eftir, the king returnit to his castell; and in the nicht
following, he was admonist, be ane vision in his sleip, to big
ane abbay of channonis regular in the same place quhare he gat
the croce. Als sone as he was awalkinnit, he schew his visione
to Alkwine, his confessoure; and he na thing suspended his gud
mind, bot erar inflammit him with maist fervent devotion thairto.
The king, incontinent, send his traist servandis in France and
Flanderis, and brocht richt crafty masonis to big this abbay;
syne dedicat it in the honour of this haly croce. The croce
remanit continewally in the said abbay, to the time of King David
Bruce; quhilk was unhappily tane with it at Durame, quhare it is
haldin yit in gret veneration."--BOECE, BOOK 12, CH. 16.
It is by no means clear what Scottish prince first built a
palace, properly so called, in the precincts of this renowned
seat of sanctity. The abbey, endowed by successive sovereigns
and many powerful nobles with munificent gifts of lands and
tithes, came, in process of time, to be one of the most important
of the ecclesiastical corporations of Scotland; and as early as
the days of Robert Bruce, parliaments were held occasionally
within its buildings. We have evidence that James IV. had a
royal lodging adjoining to the cloister; but it is generally
agreed that the first considerable edifice for the accommodation
of the royal family erected here was that of James V., anno 1525,
great part of which still remains, and forms the north-western
side of the existing palace. The more modern buildings which
complete the quadrangle were erected by King Charles II. The
name of the old conventual church was used as the parish church
of the Canongate from the period of the Reformation, until James
II. claimed it for his chapel royal, and had it fitted up
accordingly in a style of splendour which grievously outraged the
feelings of his Presbyterian subjects. The roof of this fragment
of a once magnificent church fell in in the year 1768, and it has
remained ever since in a state of desolation. For fuller
particulars, see the PROVINCIAL ANTIQUITIES OF SCOTLAND, or the
HISTORY OF HOLYROOD, BY MR. CHARLES MACKIE.
The greater part of this ancient palace is now again occupied by
his Majesty Charles the Tenth of France, and the rest of that
illustrious family, which, in former ages so closely connected by
marriage and alliance with the house of Stewart, seems to have
been destined to run a similar career of misfortune. REQUIESCANT
IN PACE!
Note 2.--STEELE, A COVENANTER, SHOT BY CAPTAIN CREICHTON.
The following extract from Swift's Life of Creichton gives the
particulars of the bloody scene alluded to in the text:--
"Having drank hard one night, I (Creichton) dreamed that I had
found Captain David Steele, a notorious rebel, in one of the five
farmers' houses on a mountain in the shire of Clydesdale, and
parish of Lismahago, within eight miles of Hamilton, a place that
I was well acquainted with. This man was head of the rebels
since the affair of Airs-Moss, having succeeded to Hackston, who
had been there taken, and afterward hanged, as the reader has
already heard; for, as to Robert Hamilton, who was then
Commander-in-chief at Bothwell Bridge, he appeared no more among
them, but fled, as it was believed, to Holland.
"Steele, and his father before him, held a farm in the estate of
Hamilton, within two or three miles of that town. When he betook
himself to arms, the farm lay waste, and the Duke could find no
other person who would venture to take it; whereupon his Grace
sent several messages to Steele, to know the reason why he kept
the farm waste. The Duke received no other answer than that he
would keep it waste, in spite of him and the king too; whereupon
his Grace, at whose table I had always the honour to be a welcome
guest, desired I would use my endeavours to destroy that rogue,
and I would oblige him for ever.
*
"I return to my story. When I awaked out of my dream, as I had
done before in the affair of Wilson (and I desire the same
apology I made in the introduction to these Memoirs may serve for
both), I presently rose, and ordered thirty-six dragoons to be at
the place appointed by break of day. When we arrived thither, I
sent a party to each of the five farmers' houses. This villain
Steele had murdered above forty of the king's subjects in cold
blood, and, as I was informed, had often laid snares to entrap
me; but it happened that, although he usually kept a gang to
attend him, yet at this time he had none, when he stood in the
greatest need. One of the party found him in one of the farmers'
houses, just as I happened to dream. The dragoons first searched
all the rooms below without success, till two of them hearing
somebody stirring over their heads, went up a pair of turnpike
stairs. Steele had put on his clothes while the search was
making below; the chamber where he lay was called the Chamber of
Deese, [Or chamber of state; so called from the DAIS, or canopy
and elevation of floor, which distinguished the part of old halls
which was occupied by those of high rank. Hence the phrase was
obliquely used to signify state in general.] which is the name
given to a room where the laird lies when he comes to a tenant's
house. Steele suddenly opening the door, fired a blunderbuss
down at the two dragoons, as they were coming up the stairs; but
the bullets grazing against the side of the turnpike, only
wounded, and did not kill them. Then Steele violently threw
himself down the stairs among them, and made towards the door to
save his life, but lost it upon the spot; for the dragoons who
guarded the house dispatched him with their broadswords. I was
not with the party when he was killed, being at that time
employed in searching one of the other houses, but I soon found
what had happened, by hearing the noise of the shot made with the
blunderbuss; from whence I returned straight to Lanark, and
immediately sent one of the dragoons express to General Drummond
at Edinburgh."--SWIFT'S WORKS, VOL.XII. (MEMOIRS OF CAPTAIN JOHN
CREICHTON), pages 57-59, Edit. Edinb. 1824.
Woodrow gives a different account of this exploit:--"In December
this year, (1686), David Steil, in the parish of Lismahagow, was
surprised in the fields by Lieutenant Creichton, and after his
surrender of himself on quarters, he was in a very little time
most barbarously shot, and lies buried in the churchyard there."
Note 3.--IRON RASP.
The ingenious Mr. R. CHAMBERS'S Traditions of Edinburgh give the
following account of the forgotten rasp or risp:--
"This house had a PIN or RISP at the door, instead of the more
modern convenience--a knocker. The pin, rendered interesting by
the figure which it makes in Scottish song, was formed of a small
rod of iron, twisted or notched, which was placed
perpendicularly, starting out a little from the door, and bore a
small ring of the same metal, which an applicant for admittance
drew rapidly up and down the NICKS, so as to produce a grating
sound. Sometimes the rod was simply stretched across the
VIZZYING hole, a convenient aperture through which the porter
could take cognisance of the person applying; in which case it
acted also as a stanchion. These were almost all disused about
sixty years ago, when knockers were generally substituted as more
genteel. But knockers at that time did not long remain in
repute, though they have never been altogether superseded, even
by bells, in the Old Town. The comparative merit of knockers and
pins was for a long time a subject of doubt, and many knockers
got their heads twisted off in the course of the dispute."--
CHAMBERS'S TRADITIONS OF EDINBURGH.
Note 4.--COUNTESS OF EGLINTON.
Susannah Kennedy, daughter of Sir Archibald Kennedy of Cullean,
Bart., by Elizabeth Lesly, daughter of David Lord Newark, third
wife of Alexander 9th Earl of Eglinton, and mother of the 10th
and 11th Earls. She survived her husband, who died 1729, no less
than fifty-seven years, and died March 1780, in her ninety-first
year. Allan Ramsay's Gentle Shepherd, published 1726, is
dedicated to her, in verse, by Hamilton of Bangour.
The following account of this distinguished lady is taken from
Boswell's Life of Johnson by Mr. Croker:--
"Lady Margaret Dalrymple, only daughter of John, Earl of Stair,
married in 1700, to Hugh, third Earl of Loudoun. She died in
1777, aged ONE HUNDRED. Of this venerable lady, and of the
Countess of Eglintoune, whom Johnson visited next day, he thus
speaks in his JOURNEY:--'Length of life is distributed
impartially to very different modes of life, in very different
climates; and the mountains have no greater examples of age than
the Lowlands, where I was introduced to two ladies of high
quality, one of whom (Lady Loudoun) in her ninety-fourth year,
presided at her table with the full exercise of all her powers,
and the other (Lady Eglintoun) had attained her eighty-fourth
year, without any diminution of her vivacity, and little reason
to accuse time of depredations on her beauty.'"
*
"Lady Eglintoune, though she was now in her eighty-fifth year,
and had lived in the retirement of the country for almost half a
century, was still a very agreeable woman. She was of the noble
house of Kennedy, and had all the elevation which the
consciousness of such birth inspires. Her figure was majestic,
her manners high-bred, her reading extensive, and her
conversation elegant. She had been the admiration of the gay
circles of life, and the patroness of poets. Dr. Johnson was
delighted with his reception here. Her principles in church and
state were congenial with his. She knew all his merit, and had
heard much of him from her son, Earl Alexander, who loved to
cultivate the acquaintance of men of talents in every
department."
*
"In the course of our conversation this day, it came out that
Lady Eglintoune was married the year before Dr. Johnson was born;
upon which she graciously said to him, that she might have been
his mother, and that she now adopted him, and when we were going
away, she embraced him, saying, 'My dear son, farewell!' My
friend was much pleased with this day's entertainment, and owned
that I had done well to force him out."
*
"At Sir Alexander Dick's, from that absence of mind to which
every man is at times subject, I told, in a blundering manner,
Lady Eglintoune's complimentary adoption of Dr. Johnson as her
son; for I unfortunately stated that her ladyship adopted him as
her son, in consequence of her having been married the year AFTER
he was born. Dr. Johnson instantly corrected me. 'Sir, don't
you perceive that you are defaming the Countess? For, supposing
me to be her son, and that she was not married till the year
after my birth, I must have been her NATURAL son.' A young lady
of quality who was present very handsomely said, 'Might not the
son have justified the fault?' My friend was much flattered by
this compliment, which he never forgot. When in more than
ordinary spirits, and talking of his journey in Scotland, he has
called to me, 'Boswell, what was it that the young lady of
quality said of me at Sir Alexander Dick's?' Nobody will doubt
that I was happy in repeating it."
Note 5.--EARL OF WINTON.
The incident here alluded to is thus narrated in Nichols'
Progresses of James I., Vol.III. p.306:--
"The family" (of Winton) "owed its first elevation to the union
of Sir Christopher Seton with a sister of King Robert Bruce.
With King James VI. they acquired great favour, who, having
created his brother Earl of Dunfermline in 1599, made Robert,
seventh Lord Seton, Earl of Winton in 1600. Before the King's
accession to the English throne, his Majesty and the Queen were
frequently at Seton, where the Earl kept a very hospitable table,
at which all foreigners of quality were entertained on their
visits to Scotland. His Lordship died in 1603, and was buried on
the 5th of April, on the very day the King left Edinburgh for
England. His Majesty, we are told, was pleased to rest himself
at the south-west round of the orchard of Seton, on the highway,
till the funeral was over, that he might not withdraw the noble
company; and he said that he had lost a good, faithful, and loyal
subject."--NICHOLS' PROGRESSES OF K. JAMES I., VOL.III. p.306.
Note 6.--MACGREGOR OF GLENSTRAE.
"The 2 of Octr: (1603) Allaster MacGregor of Glenstrae tane be
the laird Arkynles, bot escapit againe; bot after taken be the
Earle of Argyll the 4 of Januarii, and brought to Edr: the 9 of
Januar: 1604, wt: 18 mae of hes friendes MacGregors. He wes
convoyit to Berwick be the gaird, conform to the Earle's promes;
for he promesit to put him out of Scottis grund: Sua, he keipit
an Hielandman's promes, in respect he sent the gaird to convoy
him out of Scottis grund; bot yai wer not directit to pairt wt:
him, bot to fetche him bak againe. The 18 of Januar, he came at
evin againe to Edinburghe; and upone the 20 day, he was hangit at
the crosse, and ij of his freindes and name, upon ane gallows:
himself being chieff, he was hangit his awin hight above the rest
of hes freindis."--BIRRELL'S DIARY, (IN DALZELL'S FRAGMENTS OF
SCOTTISH HISTORY),pp.60,61.
ÿ
NOTES TO THE HIGHLAND WIDOW.
Note 7.--LOCH AWE.
"Loch Awe, upon the banks of which the scene of action took
place, is thirty-four miles in length. The north side is bounded
by wide muirs and inconsiderable hills, which occupy an extent of
country from twelve to twenty miles in breadth, and the whole of
this space is enclosed as by circumvallation. Upon the north it
is barred by Loch Eitive, on the south by Loch Awe, and on the
east by the dreadful pass of Brandir, through which an arm of the
latter lake opens, at about four miles from its eastern
extremity, and discharges the river Awe into the former. The
pass is about three miles in length; its east side is bounded by
the almost inaccessible steeps which form the base of the vast
and rugged mountain of Cruachan. The crags rise in some places
almost perpendicularly from the water, and for their chief extent
show no space nor level at their feet, but a rough and narrow
edge of stony beach. Upon the whole of these cliffs grows a
thick and interwoven wood of all kinds of trees, both timber,
dwarf, and coppice; no track existed through the wilderness, but
a winding path, which sometimes crept along the precipitous
height, and sometimes descended in a straight pass along the
margin of the water. Near the extremity of the defile, a narrow
level opened between the water and the crag; but a great part of
this, as well as of the preceding steeps, was formerly enveloped
in a thicket, which showed little facility to the feet of any but
the martens and wild cats. Along the west side of the pass lies
a wall of sheer and barren crags. From behind they rise in
rough, uneven, and heathy declivities, out of the wide muir
before mentioned, between Loch Eitive and Loch Awe; but in front
they terminate abruptly in the most frightful precipices, which
form the whole side of the pass, and descend at one fall into the
water which fills its trough. At the north end of the barrier,
and at the termination of the pass, lies that part of the cliff
which is called Craiganuni; at its foot the arm of the lake
gradually contracts its water to a very narrow space, and at
length terminates at two rocks (called the Rocks of Brandir),
which form a strait channel, something resembling the lock of a
canal. From this outlet there is a continual descent towards
Loch Eitive, and from hence the river Awe pours out its current
in a furious stream, foaming over a bed broken with holes, and
cumbered with masses of granite and whinstone.
"If ever there was a bridge near Craiganuni in ancient times, it
must have been at the Rocks of Brandir. From the days of Wallace
to those of General Wade, there were never passages of this kind
but in places of great necessity, too narrow for a boat, and too
wide for a leap; even then they were but an unsafe footway formed
of the trunks of trees placed transversely from rock to rock,
unstripped of their bark, and destitute of either plank or rail.
For such a structure there is no place in the neighbourhood of
Craiganuni but at the rocks above mentioned. In the lake and on
the river the water is far too wide; but at the strait the space
is not greater than might be crossed by a tall mountain pine, and
the rocks on either side are formed by nature like a pier. That
this point was always a place of passage is rendered probable by
its facility and the use of recent times. It is not long since
it was the common gate of the country on either side the river
and the pass: the mode of crossing is yet in the memory of
people living, and was performed by a little currach moored on
either side the water, and a stout cable fixed across the stream
from bank to bank, by which the passengers drew themselves across
in the manner still practised in places of the same nature. It
is no argument against the existence of a bridge in former times
that the above method only existed in ours, rather than a passage
of that kind, which would seem the more improved expedient. The
contradiction is sufficiently accounted for by the decay of
timber in the neighbourhood. Of old, both oaks and firs of an
immense size abounded within a very inconsiderable distance; but
it is now many years since the destruction of the forests of Glen
Eitive and Glen Urcha has deprived the country of all the trees
of sufficient size to cross the strait of Brandir; and it is
probable that the currach was not introduced till the want of
timber had disenabled the inhabitants of the country from
maintaining a bridge. It only further remains to be noticed that
at some distance below the Rocks of Brandir there was formerly a
ford, which was used for cattle in the memory of people living;
from the narrowness of the passage, the force of the stream, and
the broken bed of the river, it was, however, a dangerous pass,
and could only be attempted with safety at leisure and by
experience."--NOTES TO THE BRIDAL OF CAOLCHAIRN.
Note 8.--BATTLE BETWIXT THE ARMIES OF THE BRUCE AND MACDOUGAL OF
LORN.
"But the King, whose dear-bought experience in war had taught him
extreme caution, remained in the Braes of Balquhidder till he had
acquired by his spies and outskirries a perfect knowledge of the
disposition of the army of Lorn, and the intention of its leader.
He then divided his force into two columns, entrusting the
command of the first, in which he placed his archers and lightest
armed troops, to Sir James Douglas, whilst he himself took the
leading of the other, which consisted principally of his knights
and barons. On approaching the defile, Bruce dispatched Sir
James Douglas by a pathway which the enemy had neglected to
occupy, with directions to advance silently, and gain the heights
above and in front of the hilly ground where the men of Lorn were
concealed; and having ascertained that this movement had been
executed with success, he put himself at the head of his own
division, and fearlessly led his men into the defile. Here,
prepared as he was for what was to take place, it was difficult
to prevent a temporary panic when the yell which, to this day,
invariably precedes the assault of the mountaineer, burst from
the rugged bosom of Ben Cruachan; and the woods which, the moment
before, had waved in silence and solitude, gave forth their birth
of steel-clad warriors, and, in an instant, became instinct with
the dreadful vitality of war. But although appalled and checked
for a brief space by the suddenness of the assault, and the
masses of rock which the enemy rolled down from the precipices,
Bruce, at the head of his division, pressed up the side of the
mountain. Whilst this party assaulted the men of Lorn with the
utmost fury, Sir James Douglas and his party shouted suddenly
upon the heights in their front, showering down their arrows upon
them; and, when these missiles were exhausted, attacking them
with their swords and battle-axes. The consequence of such an
attack, both in front and rear, was the total discomfiture of the
army of Lorn; and the circumstances to which this chief had so
confidently looked forward, as rendering the destruction of Bruce
almost inevitable, were now turned with fatal effect against
himself. His great superiority of numbers cumbered and impeded
his movements. Thrust by the double assault, and by the peculiar
nature of the ground, into such narrow room as the pass afforded,
and driven to fury by finding themselves cut to pieces in detail,
without power of resistance, the men of Lorn fled towards Loch
Eitive, where a bridge thrown over the Awe, and supported upon
two immense rocks, known by the name of the Rocks of Brandir,
formed the solitary communication between the side of the river
where the battle took place and the country of Lorn. Their
object was to gain the bridge, which was composed entirely of
wood, and having availed themselves of it in their retreat, to
destroy it, and thus throw the impassable torrent of the Awe
between them and their enemies. But their intention was
instantly detected by Douglas, who, rushing down from the high
grounds at the head of his archers and light-armed foresters,
attacked the body of the mountaineers, which had occupied the
bridge, and drove them from it with great slaughter, so that
Bruce and his division, on coming up, passed it without
molestation; and this last resource being taken from them, the
army of Lorn were, in a few hours, literally cut to pieces,
whilst their chief, who occupied Loch Eitive with his fleet, saw,
from his ships, the discomfiture of his men, and found it
impossible to give them the least assistance."--TYTLER'S LIFE OF
BRUCE.
Note 9.--MASSACRE OF GLENCOE.
The following succinct account of this too celebrated event, may
be sufficient for this place:--
"In the beginning of the year 1692 an action of unexampled
barbarity disgraced the government of King William III. in
Scotland. In the August preceding, a proclamation had been
issued, offering an indemnity to such insurgents as should take
the oaths to the King and Queen, on or before the last day of
December; and the chiefs of such tribes, as had been in arms for
James, soon after took advantage of the proclamation. But
Macdonald of Glencoe was prevented by accident, rather than
design, from tendering his submission within the limited time.
In the end of December he went to Colonel Hill, who commanded the
garrison in Fort William, to take the oaths of allegiance to the
government; and the latter having furnished him with a letter to
Sir Colin Campbell, Sheriff of the county of Argyll, directed him
to repair immediately to Inverary, to make his submission in a
legal manner before that magistrate. But the way to Inverary lay
through almost impassable mountains, the season was extremely
rigorous, and the whole country was covered with a deep snow. So
eager, however, was Macdonald to take the oaths before the
limited time should expire, that, though the road lay within half
a mile of his own house, he stopped not to visit his family, and,
after various obstructions, arrived at Inverary. The time had
elapsed, and the sheriff hesitated to receive his submission; but
Macdonald prevailed by his importunities, and even tears, in
inducing that functionary to administer to him the oath of
allegiance, and to certify the cause of his delay. At this time
Sir John Dalrymple, afterwards Earl of Stair, being in attendance
upon William as Secretary of State for Scotland, took advantage
of Macdonald's neglecting to take the oath within the time
prescribed, and procured from the King a warrant of military
execution against that chief and his whole clan. This was done
at the instigation of the Earl of Breadalbane, whose lands the
Glencoe men had plundered, and whose treachery to government in
negotiating with the Highland clans Macdonald himself had
exposed. The King was accordingly persuaded that Glencoe was the
main obstacle to the pacification of the Highlands; and the fact
of the unfortunate chief's submission having been concealed, the
sanguinary orders for proceeding to military execution against
his clan were in consequence obtained. The warrant was both
signed and countersigned by the King's own hand, and the
Secretary urged the officers who commanded in the Highlands to
execute their orders with the utmost rigour. Campbell of
Glenlyon, a captain in Argyll's regiment, and two subalterns,
were ordered to repair to Glencoe on the first of February with a
hundred and twenty men. Campbell being uncle to young
Macdonald's wife, was received by the father with all manner of
friendship and hospitality. The men were lodged at free quarters
in the houses of his tenants, and received the kindest
entertainment. Till the 13th of the month the troops lived in
the utmost harmony and familiarity with the people, and on the
very night of the massacre the officers passed the evening at
cards in Macdonald's house. In the night Lieutenant Lindsay,
with a party of soldiers, called in a friendly manner at his
door, and was instantly admitted. Macdonald, while in the act of
rising to receive his guest, was shot dead through the back with
two bullets. His wife had already dressed; but she was stripped
naked by the soldiers, who tore the rings off her fingers with
their teeth. The slaughter now became general, and neither age
nor infirmity was spared. Some women, in defending their
children, were killed; boys, imploring mercy, were shot dead by
officers on whose knees they hung. In one place nine persons, as
they sat enjoying themselves at table, were butchered by the
soldiers. In Inverriggon, Campbell's own quarters, nine men were
first bound by the soldiers, and then shot at intervals, one by
one. Nearly forty persons were massacred by the troops, and
several who fled to the mountains perished by famine and the
inclemency of the season. Those who escaped owed their lives to
a tempestuous night. Lieutenant-Colonel Hamilton, who had
received the charge of the execution from Dalrymple, was on his
march with four hundred men, to guard all the passes from the
valley of Glencoe; but he was obliged to stop by the severity of
the weather, which proved the safety of the unfortunate clan.
Next day he entered the valley, laid the houses in ashes, and
carried away the cattle and spoil, which were divided among the
officers and soldiers."--ARTICLE "BRITAIN;" ENCYC. BRITANNICA--
NEW EDITION.
Note 10.--FIDELITY OF THE HIGHLANDERS.
Of the strong, undeviating attachment of the Highlanders to the
person, and their deference to the will or commands of their
chiefs and superiors--their rigid adherence to duty and
principle--and their chivalrous acts of self-devotion to these in
the face of danger and death, there are many instances recorded
in General Stewart of Garth's interesting Sketches of the
Highlanders and Highland Regiments, which might not inaptly
supply parallels to the deeds of the Romans themselves, at the
era when Rome was in her glory. The following instances of such
are worthy of being here quoted:--
"In the year 1795 a serious disturbance broke out in Glasgow
among the Breadalbane Fencibles. Several men having been
confined and threatened with corporal punishment, considerable
discontent and irritation were excited among their comrades,
which increased to such violence, that, when some men were
confined in the guard-house, a great proportion of the regiment
rushed out and forcibly released the prisoners. This violation
of military discipline was not to be passed over, and accordingly
measures were immediately taken to secure the ringleaders. But
so many were equally concerned, that it was difficult, if not
impossible, to fix the crime on any, as being more prominently
guilty. And here was shown a trait of character worthy of a
better cause, and which originated from a feeling alive to the
disgrace of a degrading punishment. The soldiers being made
sensible of the nature of their misconduct, and the consequent
necessity of public example, SEVERAL MEN VOLUNTARILY OFFERED
THEMSELVES TO STAND TRIAL, and suffer the sentence of the law as
an atonement for the whole. These men were accordingly marched
to Edinburgh Castle, tried, and four condemned to be shot. Three
of them were afterwards reprieved, and the fourth, Alexander
Sutherland, was shot on Musselburgh Sands.
"The following semi-official account of this unfortunate
misunderstanding was published at the time:--
"'During the afternoon of Monday, when a private of the light
company of the Breadalbane Fencibles, who had been confined for a
MILITARY offence, was released by that company, and some other
companies, who had assembled in a tumultuous manner before the
guard-house, no person whatever was hurt, and no violence
offered; and however unjustifiable the proceedings, it originated
not from any disrespect or ill-will to their officers, but from a
mistaken point of honour, in a particular set of men in the
battalion, who thought themselves disgraced by the impending
punishment of one of their number. The men have, in every
respect, since that period conducted themselves with the greatest
regularity, and strict subordination. The whole of the battalion
seemed extremely sensible of the improper conduct of such as were
concerned, whatever regret they might feel for the fate of the
few individuals who had so readily given themselves up as
prisoners, to be tried for their own and others' misconduct.'
"On the march to Edinburgh a circumstance occurred, the more
worthy of notice, as it shows a strong principle of honour and
fidelity to his word and to his officer in a common Highland
soldier. One of the men stated to the officer commanding the
party, that he knew what his fate would be, but that he had left
business of the utmost importance to a friend in Glasgow, which
he wished to transact before his death; that, as to himself, he
was fully prepared to meet his fate; but with regard to his
friend, he could not die in peace unless the business was
settled, and that, if the officer would suffer him to return to
Glasgow, a few hours there would be sufficient, and he would join
him before he reached Edinburgh, and march as a prisoner with the
party. The soldier added, 'You have known me since I was a
child; you know my country and kindred; and you may believe I
shall never bring you to any blame by a breach of the promise I
now make, to be with you in full time to be delivered up in the
Castle.' This was a startling proposal to the officer, who was a
judicious, humane man, and knew perfectly his risk and
responsibility in yielding to such an extraordinary application.
However, his confidence was such, that he complied with the
request of the prisoner, who returned to Glasgow at night,
settled his business, and left the town before daylight to redeem
his pledge. He took a long circuit to avoid being seen,
apprehended as a deserter, and sent back to Glasgow, as probably
his account of his officer's indulgence would not have been
credited. In consequence of this caution, and the lengthened
march through woods and over hills by an unfrequented route,
there was no appearance of him at the hour appointed. The
perplexity of the officer when he reached the neighbourhood of
Edinburgh may be easily imagined. He moved forward slowly
indeed, but no soldier appeared; and unable to delay any longer,
he marched up to the Castle, and as he was delivering over the
prisoners, but before any report was given in, Macmartin, the
absent soldier, rushed in among his fellow prisoners, all pale
with anxiety and fatigue, and breathless with apprehension of the
consequences in which his delay might have involved his
benefactor.
"In whatever light the conduct of the officer (my respectable
friend, Major Colin Campbell) may be considered, either by
military men or others, in this memorable exemplification of the
characteristic principle of his countrymen, fidelity to their
word, it cannot but be wished that the soldier's magnanimous
self-devotion had been taken as an atonement for his own
misconduct and that of the whole, who also had made a high
sacrifice, in the voluntary offer of their lives for the conduct
of their brother soldiers. Are these a people to be treated as
malefactors, without regard to their feelings and principles?
and might not a discipline, somewhat different from the usual
mode, be, with advantage, applied to them?"--Vol.II. pp.413-15.
3rd Edit.
"A soldier of this regiment, (The Argyllshire Highlanders)
deserted, and emigrated to America, where he settled. Several
years after his desertion, a letter was received from him, with a
sum of money, for the purpose of procuring one or two men to
supply his place in the regiment, as the only recompense he could
make for 'breaking his oath to his God and his allegiance to his
King, which preyed on his conscience in such a manner, that he
had no rest night nor day.'
"This man had had good principles early instilled into his mind,
and the disgrace which he had been originally taught to believe
would attach to a breach of faith now operated with full effect.
The soldier who deserted from the 42nd Regiment at Gibraltar, in
1797, exhibited the same remorse of conscience after he had
violated his allegiance. In countries where such principles
prevail, and regulate the character of a people, the mass of the
population may, on occasions of trial, be reckoned on as sound
and trustworthy."--Vol.II., p.218. 3rd Edit.
"The late James Menzies of Culdares, having engaged in the
rebellion of 1715, and been taken at Preston, in Lancashire, was
carried to London, where he was tried and condemned, but
afterwards reprieved. Grateful for this clemency, he remained at
home in 1745, but, retaining a predilection for the old cause, he
sent a handsome charger as a present to Prince Charles, when
advancing through England. The servant who led and delivered the
horse was taken prisoner, and carried to Carlisle, where he was
tried and condemned. To extort a discovery of the person who
sent the horse, threats of immediate execution in case of
refusal, and offers of pardon on his giving information, were
held out ineffectually to the faithful messenger. He knew, he
said, what the consequence of a disclosure would be to his
master, and his own life was nothing in the comparison. When
brought out for execution, he was again pressed to inform on his
master. He asked if they were serious in supposing him such a
villain. If he did what they desired, and forgot his master and
his trust, he could not return to his native country, for
Glenlyon would be no home or country for him, as he would be
despised and hunted out of the glen. Accordingly he kept steady
to his trust, and was executed. This trusty servant's name was
John Macnaughton, from Glenlyon, in Perthshire. He deserves to
be mentioned, both on account of his incorruptible fidelity, and
of his testimony to the honourable principles of the people, and
to their detestation of a breach of trust to a kind and
honourable master, however great might be the risk, or however
fatal the consequences, to the individual himself."--Vol.1., pp.
52,53, 3rd Edit.
ÿ
NOTE TO THE TWO DROVERS.
Note 11.--ROBERT DONN'S POEMS.
I cannot dismiss this story without resting attention for a
moment on the light which has been thrown on the character of the
Highland Drover since the time of its first appearance, by the
account of a drover poet, by name Robert Mackay, or, as he was
commonly called, Rob Donn--that is, Brown Robert--and certain
specimens of his talents, published in the ninetieth number of
the Quarterly Review. The picture which that paper gives of the
habits and feelings of a class of persons with which the general
reader would be apt to associate no ideas but those of wild
superstition and rude manners, is in the highest degree
interesting, and I cannot resist the temptation of quoting two of
the songs of this hitherto unheard-of poet of humble life. They
are thus introduced by the reviewer:--
"Upon one occasion, it seems, Rob's attendance upon his master's
cattle business detained him a whole year from home, and at his
return he found that a fair maiden to whom his troth had been
plighted of yore had lost sight of her vows, and was on the eve
of being married to a rival (a carpenter by trade), who had
profited by the young drover's absence. The following song was
composed during a sleepless night, in the neighbourhood of
Creiff, in Perthshire, and the home sickness which it expresses
appears to be almost as much that of the deer-hunter as of the
loving swain.
'EASY IS MY BED, IT IS EASY,
BUT IT IS NOT TO SLEEP THAT I INCLINE;
THE WIND WHISTLES NORTHWARDS, NORTHWARDS,
AND MY THOUGHTS MOVE WITH IT.
More pleasant were it to be with thee
In the little glen of calves,
Than to be counting of droves
In the enclosures of Creiff.
EASY IS MY BED, ETC.
'Great is my esteem of the maiden
Towards whose dwelling the north wind blows;
She is ever cheerful, sportive, kindly,
Without folly, without vanity, without pride.
True is her heart--were I under hiding,
And fifty men in pursuit of my footsteps,
I should find protection, when they surrounded me most
closely,
In the secret recess of that shieling.
EASY IS MY BED, ETC.
'Oh for the day for turning my face homeward,
That I may see the maiden of beauty--
Joyful will it be to me to be with thee,
Fair girl with the long heavy locks!
Choice of all places for deer-hunting
Are the brindled rock and the ridge!
How sweet at evening to be dragging the slain deer
Downwards along the piper's cairn!
EASY IS MY BED, ETC.
'Great is my esteem for the maiden
Who parted from me by the west side of the enclosed field;
Late yet again will she linger in that fold,
Long after the kine are assembled.
It is I myself who have taken no dislike to thee,
Though far away from thee am I now.
It is for the thought of thee that sleep flies from me;
Great is the profit to me of thy parting kiss!
EASY IS MY BED, ETC.
'Dear to me are the boundaries of the forest;
Far from Creiff is my heart;
My remembrance is of the hillocks of sheep,
And the heath of many knolls.
Oh for the red-streaked fissures of the rock,
Where in spring time the fawns leap;
Oh for the crags towards which the wind is blowing--
Cheap would be my bed to be there!
EASY IS MY BED, ETC.'
"The following describes Rob's feelings on the first discovery
of his damsel's infidelity. The airs of both these pieces
are his own, and, the Highland ladies say, very beautiful.
'Heavy to me is the shieling, and the hum that is in it,
Since the ear that was wont to listen is now no more on the
watch.
Where is Isabel, the courteous, the conversable, a sister in
kindness?
Where is Anne, the slender-browed, the turret-breasted, whose
glossy hair pleased me when yet a boy?
HEICH! WHAT AN HOUR WAS MY RETURNING!
PAIN SUCH AS THAT SUNSET BROUGHT, WHAT AVAILETH ME TO TELL IT?
'I traversed the fold, and upward among the trees--
Each place, far and near, wherein I was wont to salute my
love.
When I looked down from the crag, and beheld the fair-haired
stranger dallying with his bride,
I wished I had never revisited the glen of my dreams.
SUCH THINGS CAME INTO MY HEART AS THAT SUN WAS GOING DOWN,
A PAIN OF WHICH I SHALL NEVER BE RID, WHAT AVAILETH ME TO TELL
IT?
'Since it has been heard that the carpenter had persuaded thee,
My sleep is disturbed--busy is foolishness within me at
midnight.
The kindness that has been between us, I cannot shake off that
memory in visions;
Thou callest me not to thy side; but love is to me for a
messenger.
THERE IS STRIFE WITHIN ME, AND I TOSS TO BE AT LIBERTY;
AND EVER THE CLOSER IT CLINGS, AND THE DELUSION IS GROWING TO
ME AS A TREE.
'Anne, yellow-haired daughter of Donald, surely thou knowest
not how it is with me--
That it is old love, unrepaid, which has worn down from me my
strength;
That when far from thee, beyond many mountains, the wound in
my heart was throbbing,
Stirring, and searching for ever, as when I sat beside thee on
the turf.
NOW, THEN, HEAR ME THIS ONCE, IF FOR EVER I AM TO BE WITHOUT
THEE,
MY SPIRIT IS BROKEN--GIVE ME ONE KISS ERE I LEAVE THIS LAND!
'Haughtily and scornfully the maid looked upon me:--
Never will it be work for thy fingers to unloose the band from
my curls.
Thou hast been absent a twelvemonth, and six were seeking me
diligently;
Was thy superiority so high that there should be no end of
abiding for thee?
HA! HA! HA! HAST THOU AT LAST BECOME SICK?
IS IT LOVE THAT IS TO GIVE DEATH TO THEE? SURELY THE ENEMY
HAS BEEN IN NO HASTE.
'But how shall I hate thee, even though towards me thou hast
become cold?
When my discourse is most angry concerning thy name in thine
absence,
Of sudden thine image, with its old dearness, comes visibly
into my mind,
And a secret voice whispers that love will yet prevail!
AND I BECOME SURETY FOR IT ANEW, DARLING,
AND IT SPRINGS UP AT THAT HOUR LOFTY AS A TOWER.'
"Rude and bald as these things appear in a verbal translation,
and rough as they might possibly appear, even were the originals
intelligible, we confess we are disposed to think they would of
themselves justify Dr. Mackay (their Editor) in placing this
herdsman-lover among the true sons of song."--QUARTERLY REVIEW,
NO. XC., JULY 1831.
End of Project Gutenberg Etext of Chronicles of the Canongate, by Scott